Do we have the quality

for Portas report's proposed

High Street teams?

As we totter into the New Year, we’re hearing the usual noises about Boston town centre and a “vision” for its future – a word which makes its speaker sound more like an eremite trying to glimpse the day after tomorrow than a realistic seeker of what our options might be.
Spurred on by the Portas review, council officers have asked businesses and organisations to pull together and are particularly enamoured of the suggestion that “town teams” be set up and Business Improvement Districts given more power.
The borough’s Head of Planning and Strategy, Steve Lumb, and Ian Martin, Boston’s Town Centre Services Officer who, who is also a director of Boston BID, have been quoted as saying Town Teams and the BID may end up being a single organisation and have asked people who have “grumbles” to support Boston BID by providing constructive criticism or even by becoming directors.
Mr Lumb reportedly said: “We are Boston PLC and we need to make sure that all of us support Boston PLC.
“It’s about making sure that BID can work successfully and making sure the right directors are on there.”
Aside from the fact that the strong implication of that is that the BID is not working successfully, and that it lacks the right directors, we have to put Mr Lumb right on one of his claims.
We are not “Boston PLC.” A PLC is a limited company with shares that are traded on the Stock Exchange – an organisation which has to sing for its supper in terms of making profits and performing efficiently.
Far from faintly achieving this, the borough council extracts money from its citizens by compulsion, spends it how it pleases and is under no obligation to satisfy them in any way, shape or form.
Similarly, Boston BID extorts money from businesses regardless of whether they wish to be members of the organisation, and if they choose not to pay the so-called “levy” Boston Borough Council will cheerfully step in and drag them through the courts to force them.
The Portas review is specific in its use of language when it makes recommendations.
Recommendation number one is “Put in place a ‘Town Team’: a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team for high streets. We wonder who Mr Lumb and Mr Martin might nominate  to provide such an impressive sounding array of talent?
The “Queen of Shops” goes on to recommend: “Empower successful Business Improvement Districts to take on more responsibilities and powers and become “Super-BIDs”
We doubt whether Mr Lumb or Mr Martin would dream of calling Boston BID “successful” – and it is patently not.
For a second year running, we hear that Boston BID failed to file its accounts on time with Companies House, which means that it – or rather its levy payers - will have to foot the bill for a fine.
The organisation is well overdue for an AGM – if you are pedantic enough to regard such things in terms of general meetings held once a year. But the BID says that private companies that are not traded companies need not hold annual general meetings - and that the only requirement is for an AGM “in each period of twelve months beginning with the day following its accounting reference date.”
This means that it could be as late as March 31st.
Ironically, these latest ideas involving the BID come at a time when the borough council is trying to persuade us that its scrutiny committees can really make a difference.
Last year, one such committee made major recommendations about how Boston BID could improve its performance, and gave it a year to get its act together. That was in March, and to save time, we can tell councillors that not only has the BID done nothing at all – it has actually cut back on its communication with members.
In fact councillors know this already, and to their credit one or two have tried to get action on the issue – but without success.
Meanwhile, for a council that claims little by way of relationship with the BID – which is after all an independent company – the cosiness continues.
After getting the BID to chip in £10,000 towards the Christmas lights this year and next, the council has now spent £2,500 to buy 5,000 of the 3d maps produced with much fanfare after taking an age to produce. It’s not a bad buy, as at 50p, the maps are a snip considering they cost £1.70 to produce.
But it’s worth remembering that they contain a number of inaccuracies, and that in some cases are not easy to read.  Take a look at the picture on the right… and imagine that you're a visiting soccer fan trying to find Boston United’s York Street ground. You might well have trouble, as it appears to be located on Spayne Road.
Now we learn that the BID has been roped in to lend a “helping hand” with the Jubilee celebrations.
Presumably this will mean spending more of the hapless levy payers’ money, and given the BID’s track record to date, we are not hopeful.
Interestingly, although Boston Borough Council seems to like much of the Portas report, it is strangely silent on the call for local areas to implement free controlled parking schemes.
Could that be because the council is considering the exact opposite, by using motorists as a cash cow by hiking parking charges and introducing fees for Blue Badge holders.
Of course it could.

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