Don't let BID and borough council stall until time runs out

Last week we looked back at the minutes of September’s full council meeting  - and the persistent but fruitless attempts by Independent Councillor Richard Leggott to make some headway regarding the town’s useless Business Improvement District.
His questions then were rebuffed by the portfolio holder responsible for the BID, Councillor Derek Richmond – and the same has now happened at the most recent council meeting  a week ago today.
Councillor Leggott was one of the five members of the Task and Finish Group which met more than a year ago  - and concluded that the BID was guilty of lack of communication and management.
The other members of the group were fellow independent Councillor Brian Rush, and three Conservative councillors – although the Tories were not in power at the time – joint deputy leaders Michael Brookes and Raymond Singleton-McGuire and cabinet member Mike Gilbert.
Councillor Leggott says that one of the worrying aspects of the BID issue is “the present silence of some of the other members of that Task and Finish group who … identified the serious communication problem then existing within the BID project.
“Whether those members are, behind the scenes-within the confines of their cabinet office, making similar noises to myself I do not know. Not a peep to me from any of them on the matter.
“It would seem that Task and Finish is taken by some to mean Task and Forget.”
In response to questions, Councillor Richmond  has clung to the line that he has invited the BID manager to portfolio holder meetings on about a monthly basis.
This, he maintains, “ensures that both BID and the council are ensuring as far as possible that we are as coordinated in terms of town centre projects and related work and that we weren't being duplicating (sic) - and that this will continue to happen.
“But I didn’t, nor do I intend to have regular meetings with the BID board to discuss their business, that’s not for me to do.”
Later, he said: “I do not monitor BID, I do not believe that is within my remit, it wasn't done in the past and nowhere in the Task and Finish report does it state that I or anybody else should be doing this. As it should be, BID themselves will update the Scrutiny Committee in March.”
Councillor Leggott detects a discrepancy between the claims that Councillor Richmond - on the one hand invites the BID manager to approximately monthly meetings - whilst simultaneously claiming that he doesn’t intend to have regular meetings with the company.
Councillor Leggott has e-mailed all elected members to express concerns that there seems to be no interest in any ongoing monitoring of measures to improve the communication problems identified within Boston BID.
“Turn it out to grass and assume it is improving seems to be the attitude,” he says.
“Having sat on the task and finish group and heard the differing of opinion from the BID board and some of the participating businesses as to the level of the problem and the damage the same problem was doing to the chances of participants wholly embracing the scheme (necessary for its success)  I believe that our leaders could, justifiably, be 'in there' watching (and perhaps praying) for signs of improvement before next spring.
“But, given Councillor Richmond’s reply, that looks unlikely to happen.”
Interestingly, Boston Borough Council’s attitude toward Boston BID contrasts sharply with that of Lincoln City Council and Lincoln BIG – the Business Improvement Group.
The council repeatedly uses the word partnership in discussion documents, and entrusts the BIG with major tasks.
Compare the situation in Boston, where the council sits idly by whilst the BID undertakes projects that were once its responsibility, thus saving it money.
But worse still, it seems never to check whether the job has been done properly.
Councillor Leggott is right to press for the BID to be called to account within the twelve months allocated by the Task and Finish group.
Indeed, we would have thought that the group had reasonably assumed BID would take steps to address the major flaws identified in its operation before the review date.
He is also right to question why the Tory members of the reporting group seem happy to let sleeping BIDs lie now that they are in power.

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com