Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

Listed building consent is normally something that requires a modicum of consultation to ensure that no harm is done to our heritage - remember the interminable debate at the time the new ASDA store was built? But despite the intervention of the Christmas holiday, which saw the council’s offices closed for more than a week, it took just 45 days - from December 20th to February 3rd to process the application to smash a hole in the wall surrounding the Ingram Memorial to create “a pedestrian access.” The plan will also see the felling of a cherry tree.

click to enlarge picture

This is being done in the name of the Market Place refurbishment scheme, but for the life of us we cannot see what difference it will make – except to encourage people to walk even less. As our other picture, below, shows, the Stump wall has been in place for hundreds of years, and we thought that the whole idea of the scheme was to re-capture the way things were.



There don’t appear to have been any objections to this proposed piece of vandalism – but then with such fortunate timing the whole thing has probably been done and dusted without many people even being aware. Let’s hope we’re not seeing a return to the bad old days when Boston Borough Council received a slating from Sir Nikolaus Pevsner for allowing the destruction of several truly ancient buildings in the 1960s.

Something we’d not seen before has turned up on Boston Borough Council’s website. It’s called “Publication of Verification Number” and it details the number that comprises 5% of voters on the electoral register. The figure – 2394 – will be the number required to force a referendum or petition. Which reminds us – whatever happened to the campaign for an elected mayor for Boston, which has been silent for months?
With recent unemployment figures showing a rise in Boston’s jobless, the arrival of an organisation designed to reverse the trend is welcome - but only if people know about it. Entirely by chance, we stumbled across a website called “Get Boston Working” which calls itself a work group designed to help get people into employment or closer to the employment market. We say “stumbled across” because this was the first we have heard of the site which was launched at the end of November last year, and has since posted just once – three weeks ago. On closer examination it appears to be another service of TaylorITEX, and deals more with the theory of getting a job than the reality with such buzzy things as “personal profile building, goal setting awareness, personalised CV design and confidence building.” All of these are well and good, but what we really need are a few more jobs around the place. A look at this week’s local “newspapers” show just a handful of vacancies in Boston – some of which are part-time and other seasonal.
Of course, jobs can be created only when the climate is right, and we were a little concerned to note the appearance of another long established and genuinely local business in the property for sale pages of the newspapers this week.
Just this one agent is advertising 16 commercial properties around the town including a number in the prime central areas. The total value runs into millions. If all these were to sell at once, Boston’s shopping area would resemble a wasteland. We also hear of another national chain store which is set to close shortly.
The plan to bring high speed broadband to the area is seeing a disappointing number of registrations from people expressing an interest in the service. Although it has improved since the announcement at the end of last month that the Lincolnshire scheme had received government approval, people are still being urged to register to lend weight to the scheme.
In Boston’s “unparished” area there have been just 116 registrations, with 50 in Fishtoft, 27 in Wyberton, 20 in Kirton, 18 in Frampton, 16 in Swineshead, 14 in Wrangle, nine each in Bicker, Holland Fen and Old Leake, eight in Freiston, six each in Butterwick, Leverton and Sutterton, and three each in Fosdyke, Benington and Wigtoft. Whilst the numbers may seem low, Boston borough has three entries in the Top 20 list of most registrations. We wonder if people may be deterred by the registration procedure itself – as the county council asks for what it calls “Your account details” including e-mail address and password. We are sure that some people are confused by this, and may be reluctant to register because they fear that they are being asked for personal information.
There’s some good news this week for Boston County Councillor Ramonde Newell, in the form of an announcement by County Hall that Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue will soon have one of the UK’s largest flood rescue capabilities when it takes delivery of ten new rescue boats next month. As a result, the number of specially-trained, fully equipped water rescue teams in the county will increase from one to ten - making Lincolnshire one of the nation’s most prepared areas for flooding. We’ve lost count of the number of times that Councillor Newell has raised this issue since the boat that was previously based in Boston was moved to Spalding, but it seems to have been worth the effort. Although the exact locations for the boats are yet to be determined it is unthinkable that Boston will not be one of them.
Still with County Hall, the hokum continues over the freezing of council tax, which we mentioned the other day in connection with Boston’s boast that it would not be raising charges. Lincolnshire County Council Leader Martin Hill tells us with classic understatement: “Times are tough at the moment. You know it. I know it. That’s why I’m pleased to announce some good news for hard-pressed Lincolnshire households in our 2012/13 budget proposals. For the second year running, Lincolnshire County Council intends to freeze its council tax, so you won’t pay a penny more for all the services we provide.” As we never tire of pointing out – this “freeze” has been ordered by the government, which is offering extra grant funding to councils who comply - rather than some act of local generosity. Interestingly, we are told that Lincolnshire County Council has to save £125m over four years “as the country seeks to cut the national deficit.” Well, you wouldn’t expect a true blue Tory council like Lincolnshire to mention that the cuts have been imposed by a Conservative chancellor, would you?
A sharp-eyed reader commented this week about a certain lack of knowledge within Boston Borough Council as far as local geography is concerned. It followed our publication of the “back of a fag packet” plan for the Victorian garden being built in Central Park.
An e-mail said: “It’s interesting to note that the plan shows an arrow pointing towards Tunnard Street when in fact the garden is next to Tawney Street! “ There then followed a sentence mentioning elbows and other parts of the anatomy, which we are sure you have heard before!
How’s this for the power of advertising? Earlier this week, Boston Borough Council’s website proclaimed “Bids from public bodies and charitable organisations have been invited for surplus reclaimed materials taken up from Boston Market Place as part of its refurbishment.” The article mentioned paving slabs, bricks, kerbstones and other construction materials which it said were available free of charge from Boston Borough Council’s Fen Road depot. However, within hours the piece had vanished. Does this mean it was so successful that every last slab has gone to a good cause? Or did someone change their mind about giving stuff away which could be sold in these hard times?

We have often mentioned how neighbouring local authorities take it as read that part of their responsibility it to improve life for their electorate - which is why we were a little disappointed at the phraseology used in this week’s announcement about the fitting of solar panels at the Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre. The £105,000 project is expected to pay back the investment within eight to nine years, and generate a profit of at least £260,000 over 25 years. And if a government appeal over pricing fails we are told that the council will be in line for “a much higher overall profit.” Council leader, Peter Bedford said: “Our investment in solar PV represents a good deal for the council.” We’re sure that it does. But what’s in it for the taxpayers? Nothing - unless these future profits are used to improve services and keep costs down.
Instead, it seems that whenever possible any cash goes towards enlarging the council’s empire. Last week we reported that the first spend from a government grant to get empty housing back into use would be the appointment of a shared “Empty Homes Officer” at £30,000 a year. Now we read that Boston’s Labour councillors have questioned the need for a “Transformation Programme Manager” on a one-year contract costing £35,000. At a recent debate, Labour questioned whether we really needed this post and asked about its purpose. “We were astonished that the leading members of the council on the Cabinet sat there in silence,” says a report on Labour’s website. “We only got a response from our senior management team and they came out with a stereotypical answer – that it is essential to have this post to help them with the savings strategy of Boston Borough Council.” Labour’s view is that the job could be done by existing staff. “There was no evidence to prove that we really needed this extra job, so we would ask the leader and his cabinet to remove this post and make a budget saving of £35,000. They could also take a lead in suggesting how the council should be run. Isn’t that what you expect from the cabinet and leader model? We look forward to their answer at the budget setting meeting on 1st March, where we expect to see this post deleted from the budget.”
Finally, the ongoing debate about charging disabled blue badge holders for parking saw this graphic winging its way to us via e-mail from a reader who stumbled across it.
We suspect that Tories elsewhere have been roughing up the disabled as well!


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