Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

Boston Borough Council may have ambitious plans to generate its own electricity to save thousands of pounds, but the parish councils that it bills for what it calls “footway” lighting – to distinguish it from street lights, which are the responsibility of the county council, are in for an electric shock of their own. A “briefing document” to the parishes asks them either to accept responsibility for the lighting or else pay £68 a light to meet the cost. This will have the effect of raising parish precepts from – at the lowest 13.6% in Wyberton to 105.2% in Frampton. One parish councillor told us: “Whilst I can understand Boston Borough Council trying to sort out the financial hole it is in, I wonder what the response will be to parish councils who refuse ... or dim or turn off their lights during certain hours?
It’s exactly a month to Christmas Day – and our congratulations go to local businessman Darron Abbott for persuading a number of our borough councillors to form a choir to entertain visitors to the Christmas Market weekend on Sunday December 11th. Councillors volunteering so far are Carol Taylor, Derek Richmond, Paul Kenny, Paul Gleeson, Mike Gilbert and Judith Skinner – and we understand that joint deputy leader Michael Brookes has also agreed to take part. According to the publicity, Councillor Taylor may attend dressed as a Christmas pudding! We felt that not only did this lend an entirely different meaning to the phrase “Carol singing” – but it sent us to the drawing board for an artist’s impression  - see our picture on the left! As Mr Abbott  has invited all councillors to take part, we hope that more volunteers will be forthcoming – otherwise we’ll all know who the gloomy ones are!   He said: “It will give the councillors a chance to show the public they are up for a bit of fun and are prepared to muck in.  In these times of doom and gloom it will be nice to show Boston has community spirit.” How true – and may we add that we hope that seeing Tory, Labour, Independent and BDI councillors all singing from the same song sheet may be the shape of things to come.
Talking of singing from the same song sheet, we see that the group leaders on Boston Borough Council have written to local MP Mark Simmonds urging that he again asks Communities Secretary Eric Pickles for more money because of the pressure on services from the “rapid and significant” population change since 2004 caused by the influx of migrant workers. Does this mean that the council is losing faith in the likelihood of a result from the meetings that have taken place to date? And surely, Mr Simmonds shouldn’t need prompting to do his job … should he?
On the issue of Boston and immigration, we mentioned on Tuesday how the BBC locally had a field day this time last week with more than 15 minutes’ airtime across two radio shows and one TV programme to say absolutely nothing new about the matter. This didn’t stop them wheeling out two MEPs on Wednesday to react at length to the news that a Latvian living in Boston who killed another migrant whilst drink driving was a convicted murderer in his home country. The reason why he was able to come here could adequately be summarised in a single sentence. But it seems that the BBC likes any chance to drag Boston through the mire. And incidentally, was the introductory script  on BBC Radio Lincolnshire entirely accurate, when it said that the MEPs’ concern came  “… after a convicted killer from Latvia was allowed into Lincolnshire to kill again …”  How do you do that, then? Do you fill in an application form, or something similar?
They say that there’s nothing new under the sun, and we were entertained to note the strong resemblance between Boston BID’s long awaited 3D map and those produced 350 years ago by the celebrated artist Wenceslaus Hollar (see below)

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Given the obvious difficulties of the day, Hollar created his maps with no need for dozens of aerial photographs – and given that time was money in those days, we suspect he probably produced them much  quicker than the year or more it has taken Boston BID. Unfortunately the BID map uses the same information published on the recently refurbished  so-called tourist information boards – and that means that a number of items are wrong – including South Square being pictured as the Market Place. Again, because of the time factor, the police non-emergency number is now out of date, and we wonder how the town’s businesses feel about their hard earned money being spent to announce that the Springfields shopping outlet is just “a short drive away.” So it’s about par for the course for the BID, really. One final chapter in the saga … we hear that the £17,000 paid for this exercise apparently did not actually include a stock of maps - which have to be bought for an extra 50p each.
It can only be good news that another 6,000 properties in the Boston floodplain have been signed up to receive free flood warnings by telephone. The news came just in time to remind us to attend the last of the Environment Agency’s drop-in sessions on the planned Boston flood barrier. We came away not entirely convinced that the preferred location was the right one.  As is so often the case with projects such as this at all levels, it focussed on the town centre first and foremost, and means that considerable extra construction to raise river banks to protect areas presently not  considered at risk of flooding will be needed. We also asked why the Environment Agency flood risk maps are drawn up as if no protection of any kind existed.  We were told that it was a government idea – to emphasise the potential danger. Now we know who to blame next time our premiums go up with a jolt – or worse still if we are refused insurance entirely, as happens quite often in Boston.
It’s good to see that something is at last being done to address long-standing problems in Wormgate caused by traffic using the road as a rat run. We have always said that Wormgate is badly neglected and could have a  huge tourist impact  with a little cosmetic surgery. It does seem, though, that at least one problem need not exist at all. We hear that “when rain gathers in large puddles, where the road surface has dipped, the vehicles throw waves of water against the properties.” Then,  why is no-one levelling the road surface so that these puddles do not form? Presumably this is the job of Lincolnshire County Council, which is to investigate placing bollards in the road  - but at the same time warning that it could take six to nine months before they are in place. We wouldn’t mind betting that any such problem in Lincoln would be far more rapidly resolved. But we also think that an interim suggestion that extra police should be employed to “dissuade” people from using the road as a shortcut may well cause more trouble than it prevents. If no order to the contrary exists,  surely motorists can use the road as they wish.
On the one hand, Boston’s Giles Academy describes itself as “leading edge” – whilst in the same breath placing the advert below in our local papers.

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“Wanna be …?” Presumably, the academy thinks that such an advert makes the place look “cool.” The word that springs to our mind is “naff.”
Finally, we mentioned that the last time the Business Target appeared in our local paper, out of 40 news stories, none featured Boston- and the nearest to the town  concerned in-house awards to Marshalls of Butterwick. Nothing much has changed with the current issue. Of roughly the same number of stories, again, none is from Boston – and co-incidentally the only nearby story again involves Butterwick … this time featuring a firm that has invented the “world’s first alcoholic foam.” It’s scarcely Nobel prize-winning stuff, and critics of Boston might detect a certain irony. But it begs a few questions. Firstly -   is the supplement based on enquiries by reporters?  If so, are they neglecting to make many calls to Boston? If not, then we must ask what Boston businesses are doing to promote themselves by providing information to local supplements such as this? Meanwhile, the Target  produces  a generously  paged publication  - when the reality is that trees are being felled in vain just to make it look good.

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Our former blog is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com