After what seems like an age of inaction, several things are now going on at once in Boston. Yesterday we mentioned the Portas Pilot bid, and other things on the boil include Boston in Bloom and the completion of the Market Place renovation.
Today’s borough council cabinet meeting has on the agenda a lengthy report to cover the latter – and in some ways is more notable for what it doesn’t say than for what it does.
We know that the bulk of the job will be finished by Good Friday 6th April – just in time for Boston Borough Council to wish us a happy Easter by reintroducing parking charges. And if previous years are anything to go by, don’t expect to park for nothing because it’s a bank holiday – we’ve seen tickets handed out at Easter before.
A couple of late arrivals on the street scene will be the Five Lamps replica of the original, but which sadly is being let down by being incorporated into a bus stop for the Into Town service – and the smashing of a hole in the listed perimeter wall of Boston Stump … to save pedestrians walking any farther  than is absolutely necessary.
We would hope that once the full vista of the new Market Place can be properly viewed, there might be a rethink on the latter plan – but somehow we doubt it.
Parking availability in the Market Place has been reduced from 110 spaces to 40, “historic routes" have been picked out within the design, and new car parking bays will be defined with white granite setts instead of painted lines.
Parking bays, ticket machines and other furniture are yet to be introduced.
How well all of this is handled is critical to the success of the project.
Although there is less parking, pedestrians will still have to contend with cars and delivery vehicles as before, and we would hope that someone has had a bright idea to see them kept as separate as possible.
Street furniture – the look of it – will be important as well.
And what is to be done about areas where parking is not allowed?
Whilst all of the above sound to be issues of fine tuning, getting them right will be crucial – and the wrong look here -  or fifty yards of double yellow lines there-  could see the hopes for an attractive, distinctive historic area completely dashed.
And wouldn’t it be marvellous if the Into Town buses could be re-routed so that they no longer travel through Strait Bargate into the Market Place.
Without question, they were one of the biggest disasters that the town’s shoppers have seen, and the
re-opening of a newly restored Market Place would present an ideal opportunity to create a genuinely pedestrian-friendly  area by sending the buses packing.
Discussions are also going on with stallholders about the return of the Wednesday and Saturday markets – and we suspect that many of them would prefer to retain the way it has been running these past few months.
The first big visitor to the new Market Place will be the Boston May Fair – not the Mayfair as it is still wrongly referred to in borough council papers.
But what happens after that?
Avenues being explored include working with a local café owner to establish an expanded open air street café, working with specialist craft market sellers to potentially introduce a small fortnightly craft market into Market Place on Thursday and Friday’s, whilst further market ideas, including farmers’ markets and other types of continental markets are also being explored.
The council is also seeking to establish a series of summer events in the Market Place that could involve local groups such as performing arts, musicians, choral groups and the like. Discussions and feasibility remain in their early stages, but the declared aim is to encourage good quality and attractive street entertainment, subject to the management resources being available.
As we said yesterday, we are concerned about the lack of imagination shown in the Portas Pilot bid.
Little has been heard about the Boston in Bloom project, but what has emerged is much as we would expect.
The Market Place should be the main focus of our attentions now.
Such a vast area for potential use should attract equally big ideas.
Let’s have less use of words like “potentially,” “small,” “explore,” “seeking,” “feasibility,”  and “subject to.”
We exploit potential  ...
We don't think in possibilities ...
We think big - not small ...
We find, rather than seek ...
We want realities not feasibilities ...
Anything else  implies  narrowness, lack of imagination, and the whiff of failure before we have even started.
And we've had far too much of that in recent years.

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