Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

The BBC's Lincolnshire news website was quick to report the decision to sell off or lease Boston’s Assembly Rooms to the private sector. It quoted Councillor Mike Gilbert, portfolio holder for housing, property and communities, as saying: "There is no way the town is going to be adversely affected by any commercial opportunities that the building offers. The building will still have pride of place in Boston market place, and perhaps will once again become the proud building it deserves to be." It’s a laudable ambition, and we hope that it will turn out to be the case, as any change to the look of the Assembly Rooms could have a huge impact on the appearance of the town, and must be a key consideration when any new use is proposed.
Strangely, the BBC website has not been as quick to cover the proposed march through Boston on 19th November, even though the event has been debated to death on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Look North.  More than that -  it has failed to mention it entirely. We wonder on what basis the people who write the corporation’s web pages decide an event  such as this is not worth even a line. An example of selective coverage, perhaps - such as another which you can find further down the page.

One reader who has commented on the coverage is Boston’s Robin Smith, who was transported in time by events of recent days. “Many years ago one of the regular variety acts on the old steam radio was a strange and very weird double act called Nat Mills and Bobby,” he writes, “who in their stage persona lived in a universe in which reality had no place. This long forgotten duo came to my mind after seeing Boston’s own double act of Bedford and Gilbert on TV and reading their various so-called statements in the press. The universe with no place for reality of Nat Mills and Bobby (pictured) now seems to be alive and well in Boston’s own Palace of Varieties.  The political establishment from the top down continues to abuse the local unemployed and young Boston people who, in the vast majority of cases, are desperate for any kind of paid work. Of course there is the inconvenient fact that a great many of them were once employed in the low paid agricultural sector as direct employees, but were, as they say, let go, and replaced by even lower paid agency staff. Just look at how the employers of agency staff are now squealing with horror now that they are supposed to pay agency workers the same as full time workers after 12 weeks. The farmers’ representative on earth, Roger Welberry, was on Radio Lincolnshire some time ago and to give credit where credit is due, was completely open and honest in what the local farmers and pack houses required. What they needed was a large pool of readily available labour to do “menial work" that the farmers can call on as and when required. There we have it - as and when required. So it seems that in this area many major employers don't want full employment for local people of all ethnicities - only agency staff as and when required. It would be very interesting to know from Worst Street what the cost to the taxpayer is of the huge subsidy that we are paying through housing benefit/rent rebate to help very low paid people pay the inflated rents charged in the town. It seems that various local employers are using the benefit system as an excuse for paying poverty wages with the taxpayer making up the shortfall. We don’t hear Nat Mills and Bobby worrying about that though do we?”
Once again, the borough council’s spending on items over £500 contains a couple of noteworthy invoices amongst the charges for August. The first is the payment of just over £4,000 to the Performing Right Society for music royalties at the Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre for the 12 months from April last year. That’s around £80 a week for muzak. We wonder how many people would notice if the speakers around the place stopped dribbling out this annoying stuff. Or – if it must be played – why doesn’t the borough source one of the many companies producing royalty free music? A penny saved is a penny earned.
The second item is a little more mysterious – the payment of £800 for the removal of 800 litres of sharps by the street cleansing service. "Sharps" waste is a form of medical waste, which includes any device or object used to puncture or lacerate the skin, and is classified as biohazardous. What are we seeing here? Surely not drug paraphernalia collected from the town’s streets. If anyone will tell us, we’d be grateful.
Whilst a bypass for Boston is unlikely ever to happen, it seems that Lincolnshire County Council is taking no chances when it comes to securing the bypass after next for Lincoln. Reports claim that almost £4 million of taxpayers' cash has been spent on houses and land to make way for Lincoln's southern bypass – despite no guarantee that it will happen. The future of the southern bypass depends on a successful county  council bid to the government for £50 million to build an eastern bypass. If that is approved it would open in 2016 or 2017 – and only then would a southern bypass become a possibility. Estimates suggest it would not be built until 2030 at the earliest. And they deny that there’s one law for Lincoln and another for Boston.
As we tottered down Petticoat Lane the other day we saw the dreary wall belonging to Marks and Spencer that lines the approach to the Market Place and had a brainwave. The old bricked up windows suggested themselves as frames that could house photos to promote the town.

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Whilst it is an incomplete and very rough impression - what do you think? It’s something that could be done for little cost – possibly even funded by the store itself as a goodwill contribution – and we believe it would be a great enhancement that locals and visitors alike would approve of. Several other lanes lend themselves to similar enhancements as well, by the way.
One of the last people we would have expected to read Boston Eye is borough councillor Paul Mould. But it seems that not only does he read it, he has pored over it closely enough to spot every recent little typographical error he can find in the 5,000 or so words we turn out each week - and written to the Boston Standard to mention them both. Once, a word was repeated, and another time, a stray letter crept into a word. Aside from being mind numbingly sad and petty, we trust that Councillor Mould is as assiduous in his attention to council duties, as this is perhaps the first utterance we can recall from the erudite but apparently reclusive Mr Mould. He also takes Boston Eye to task for its criticism of the council, but is confident that this will become “harder and harder over the next two years, as items of good news follow one after the other.” We look forward to the start of this joyful procession - and will be delighted to report it when it happens. One final point …. Councillor Mould is wrong to assert that we have never heard of the subjunctive tense. We had one for years – but the guy ropes snapped and it blew away one windy night.
Talking of letters to the local paper, an identical missive sent to both the Boston Target and Boston Standard appears in this week’s editions. It was written by local activist Darron Abbott, a Boston businessman and former borough council candidate. Aside from one of two minor alterations to conform to individual style, there were some notable, but interesting, omissions in one of the letters. A meld of the two appears below, with the differences between the versions marked.
The appropriately coloured highlights were published in one paper but not the other – can you say which is which?

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The sections highlighted in yellow were omitted by the Standard. In general terms, the excised words were critical of the police and the borough council. What does this tell us about the fearlessness of the Standard’s journalism? Answers on a postcard, please.
A grand opportunity to celebrate National Personal Safety Day this coming Monday is with a visit to Boston’s hugely powerful and sophisticated 72-camera CCTV system. Whilst it’s described as an open day, it strikes us as an odd choice of phrase - as visits are by appointment only. However, we can offer some help for anyone devastated by not being able to attend. The thrust of this year’s event is to raise awareness of the “simple, practical solutions that everyone can use to help avoid violence and aggression.” It’s called running away!
We note that having been thwarted in its plan to blow £10,000 of Boston Business Improvement District levy payers’ cash on an open air concert, the BID is now chipping in an identical amount towards the town’s new Christmas lights – to boost the borough council’s £25,000 contribution. Presumably there has been a change of heart somewhere, as the council and BID had apparently agreed that the idea was best put on hold this year because of the Market Place refurbishments. We wonder what the businesses in the town will think about this – especially as the cancelled concert is still on the cards for next year, and will cost them another £10,000. Meanwhile, the refurbishment is continuing to jeopardise local firms. The latest to be affected is Savers, where staff are said to  fear for their jobs after a slump in turnover. But not to worry – no-one else is. Lincolnshire County Council insists it is doing all it can to minimise the impact on businesses – despite the clear evidence that its efforts are not working.
Meanwhile, the BID appears to be as on the ball as ever, with this announcement on its website, pictured below …

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Anyone thinking of nominating someone or applying for the Boston Business awards needed to move quickly – unlike the BID, which left it until the day before entries closed to tell their members about it.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com