Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

We have commented before on how the creation of the cabinet system has totally emasculated the role of the full council – and Monday’s forthcoming meeting is an excellent example. There are just four items on the agenda – the annual scrutiny report, a review of the overview and scrutiny function, and the constitution of committees - followed by the exclusion of the public and press so that the future of the chief executive role can be discussed. The latter item makes us wonder what’s going on. Is the council considering yet another extension for the present incumbent – who has now been interim for more than two years … longer than some chief executives have served – or is it looking at another job share such as the one it has with East Lindsey with its Director of Resources and Section 151 Officer?   Perhaps we’ll find out some day when the council decides that the riff raff may safely be told. Quite honestly, though, if council meetings are to be this lightweight, we wonder whether there is any justification in the cost of assembling 32 people at 6-30 at night for an agenda of such paucity. Or is that the idea?
Boston Borough Council has issued a triumphal statement which says that the attempt to rediscuss the decision to use almost £200,000 from council reserves to fund the re-opening of the Moulder training pool has failed. The ten-strong Performance Review Committee voted six for, one against, to disallow the call-in. By our reckoning that leaves three votes unaccounted for – and it would be interesting to know the full result. However, as six members of the committee are members of the ruling Conservative group, the vote was a foregone conclusion in any case. All we are seeing is a group of Tory faithful bending the knee to their masters in the cabinet – something that we saw all too often in the days of the BBI. The call in was a sensible move that would have allowed better scrutiny of the deal, and we are sure that we have not yet heard the last of it.
Another press release issued this week carried reaction from council leader Peter Bedford to the four- page spread in last weekend’s Mail on Sunday by their controversial columnist Peter Hitchens (see “Mail on Sunday star columnist slams Boston” by clicking here.  Interestingly, whilst the Boston Standard treated the piece as a story, the Boston Target used the statement in the form of a reader’s letter - without reporting the Hitchens comments. Could this have something to do with the fact that the Target and Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday are in the same group? Unfortunately, we aren’t sent borough council press releases – even though we have repeatedly requested them, and probably write more about the council each week than our combined local “newspapers” do in a month. We think the reason is that we don’t accept what the council does at two-face value, whereas the local press mostly does as it’s told. Councillor Bedford used the same winning tactics he employed on Boston Eye when demanding an apology and correction from us recently after first slagging us off remorselessly. He referred to Peter Hitchins’s writings as “clichéd, jaundiced, inaccurate and one-sided”- and then invited him to come back to Boston to meet people working to make the town a better place to live. What diplomacy! What a politician! Mr Hitchens may be polite enough to reply, but a journalist of his stature does not make return visits and, certainly never recants. One word of advice to Councillor Bedford – when posing for a photo to illustrate your outrage – it’s best not to hold the newspaper open exactly at the centre pages when the thousands of people who will have read it know that the story didn’t go beyond page four.
Incidentally, for those who may have missed it, Lord Northcliffe seems to have a particular bee in his bonnet where Boston is concerned. The day after the Peter Hitchens piece, yet another immigration story appeared in the Daily Mail, headed “50 babies a day born to Polish mothers in UK” – and despite statistics for the whole of the country to go at, told us: “Figures show Eastern European migrant mothers accounted for more than one in four babies in Boston, Lincolnshire. In total last year, one in every four children born in England and Wales was to a foreign-born mother –a total of 181,827 children.” Expect more of the same.
Interestingly, an e-mail link to the Hitchens Sunday feature was sent to a number of Boston’s great and good as soon as it appeared by Boston Eye reader Geoffrey Rylott,  who urged the recipients: “Please read this article as it is one of the most damning reports made regarding Boston. This is being sent to a number of prominent people in power within Boston. I hope that you have reason to make a reply with your thoughts known.” Copies were sent to Boston Borough Leader Councillor Peter Bedford and his joint deputy Raymond Singleton McGuire – who are also county councillors – plus former leader Richard Austin, Chief Executive Richard Harbord, and County Councillor Ramonde Newell. The only person to respond was Councillor Bedford, who said: “On the migrant front we are in the process of setting up a task and finish group to involve all aspects of this type of problem, not just in Boston but throughout Lincolnshire, as it is a big problem in all our areas. We then feel that this can be a model for further investigations looking at the whole problem, but we will need county and government help to do this.” The use of the word problem on three occasions is in interesting contrast to his official statement. And would it have hurt the other recipients to have responded, we wonder?
We’d like to congratulate Boston Business Improvement District on a job well done – but sadly that won’t be possible. Regular readers may recall that some weeks ago the BID spirited the town’s seven tourist information display boards to a secret location to refurbish them. Now the job is done and the displays are back in place ( see picture below ...)

click to enlarge photo

The BID says that information on the boards will change from time to time – BUT we think that straight away would be best. A quick glance at the poster disclosed some real howlers. Places of interest include the Central Park Avery.” If memory serves, Avery produces weights and labels. Birds live in an aviary. The picture captioned as the Market Place is not the Market Place – but South Street. Hussey Tower – described as an impressive manorial home – is in fact no more than a ruin. The entry about the Maud Foster Mill mentions Maude’s Tea Room. It should of course read Maud’s  - although that scarcely matters now as this facility has closed due to the recent roadworks and other problems in the area… We’ll ignore the incorrect use of English in several instances – but what a shame that the BID remains so useless.
The good news is that after eight years and as many millions of pounds, the Princess Royal Sports Arena is actually to be used for the purpose for which it was intended when it was built. It is to be the training centre for the Egyptian paralympic team for a week in October next year – although the 50 athletes involved will be staying in Lincoln, rather than locally. Needless to say there is lots of whooping about how much work has gone into winning this visit – which apparently has taken 18 months of negotiation. Given the number of athletes coming to Britain, we would have expected a fight for facilities rather than to have to beg people to use our purpose-built PRSA. What worries us is that Boston Borough Council is again up there in the spotlight, when it is supposed to be distancing itself from the PRSA once and for all. Of far greater concern will be if the Boston Sports Initiative - which is responsible for the PRSA - seizes the opportunity to demand  yet another huge cash injection from Boston’s ratepayers -  which  in the circumstances would be impossible to refuse.
As we reported earlier in the week, last Friday’s meeting of Lincolnshire County Council was memorable, if nothing else, for a fault with the sound system that left spectators of the LCC webcast needing a crash course in lip reading. It reminded us that we have been told that we can expect a similar service – without the gremlins, we hope – in Boston’s council chamber. Soon after the elections in May, the outgoing leader, Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire told us: “I have arranged and instigated and hopefully it will be approved, to have cameras in the chamber, therefore preventing any future personal bravado or outbursts, and to retain the respect and diplomacy expected in a Council Chamber. This I began organising before the election.” Whilst we look forward to the council’s TV debut in due course, we should also issue a caution. Most councillors that we have seen on the webcasts have not benefited from the experience, and a member who looks good on paper at election time may not shine quite so brightly on the silver screen.
In its unceasing efforts to be helpful, Boston Borough Council has reproduced a brochure on its website under the link Money Advice. It takes us to something called Coping with the economic downturn – a practical guide for working people and their families  - published jointly by the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and the TUC.  There's nothing wrong with that – except that the guide was published in November 2008, and we think that as things have moved on quite a bit since, some more up to date information might be more useful.
Whilst Christmas may still be a dozen or so weeks away, Boston’s Labour group is sounding a timely warning about avoiding a repeat of last year’s fiasco - when our Christmas lights were switched on by a council electrician in a ceremony of sorts carried live on BBC Radio Lincolnshire. At the time, Boston Borough Council’s bulletin trumpeted this switch-on with the claim “you couldn’t buy better publicity.” After initially being made to look daft on the wireless because Boston was apparently the only place in the county that didn’t have a proper switching-on ceremony, a second piece sought to address this by doing the job over the air. Somehow, the borough got the idea that this was a publicity coup, when in fact it just highlighted inadequacy, with Boston lending a helping hand. Labour says: “Our Labour councillors are wondering what Boston Borough Council intends to do this year? We hope it will be something better and that they will refer the issue back to full council for a full discussion.” We hope so too. This year it is more important than ever that some special effort is put in – particularly in the Market Place area. There should be strenuous efforts to ensure that the county council’s promise to ease the renovation works around the Christmas period is kept, and everything possible must be done to make the area attractive and welcoming to shoppers. However, as we reported last year, in January 2010 Boston Borough Council told Boston BID saying that the council’s existing contract for Christmas lighting had expired and they were considering lease agreements in future for around £35,000. The plan was that the council would throw in £25,000  towards the proposed new leasing agreement saved by ending the existing contract , and the additional £10,000 would come from the BID - which means from  the tax on local businesses enforced by the borough council. Initially, the BID liked the scheme, but wanted to know more. A month later, the council officer who raised the idea said because of  the Market Place refurbishments it might be wise to put the project on hold, and the BID board agreed. On that basis, we anticipate a Boston Christmas that Ebenezer Scrooge - pre-conversion of course – would have applauded.
Finally, we have received an e-mail from Independent Councillor Taylor following yesterday’s piece about councillors’ attendances at meetings. She writes: “I congratulate Councillor Spencer for his open and honest response to your blog. He is quite right in recognising that many of the meetings favour those who no longer have full time employment. It is clear to me that Councillor Spencer is our future in local government/politics and hope that he will receive instruction and guidance from his peers before it is too late. I too work full time, doing early, late and night shifts but this enables me to book days off to attend meetings or before commencing duty. Councillor Spencer does not have this option as his work is during office hours. Referring to Councillor Brian Rush's comments during a council meeting, he discussed the need to attract people like Councillor Spencer. The combination of the experience and wisdom of Councillor Rush and the ' rookie ' Councillor Spencer would prove to be a great plan for the future of Boston Borough Council and its tax paying customers. Perhaps Councillor Rush could be Councillor Spencer's mentor?! What a wonderful idea.”

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.