What is the point of planning almost 20 years ahead?
Not for the first time, we are being invited to have our say on some of the major issues affecting our future here in Boston – oh! and South Holland as well.
This is because of a new partnership which lumps together Boston Borough, South Holland District and Lincolnshire County Councils into a joint planning authority called – wait for it – the South East Lincolnshire Joint Strategic Planning Committee, with a logo which looks as though someone has spilt a blob of ice cream on a map of the county.
A dedicated website www.southeastlincslocalplan.org  has been created for us to visit and make our comments and offer up our vision for this super district between now and 2031 – nineteen years from now.
Why 2031? Apparently so that targets can be set for things such as land availability for housing and employment needs and - a great catch-all, this – “what the expected population at that date might need.”
How long is a piece of string?
Our “vision” can be “anything to do with our communities, settlements and the environment, but particularly if it has a local focus and, especially, if the means to achieving the vision are within “our” capabilities.”
The vision “should therefore be informed by an analysis of the characteristics of the area and its constituent parts, the key opportunities and challenges facing them. Everyone will have their own knowledge, experience and opinions, and this exercise is your opportunity to express them.”
The new website has links to enough documents to choke an elephant – with some of the reading material dating back more than five years, and therefore most probably out of date.
But to cut an exceptionally long story short, the main aims will be to identify land that will be need to be developed for housing, shops, or employment uses, and land which must be protected from development – perhaps because of historic or environmental importance; co-ordinating the provision of infrastructure and local facilities; deciding the appropriate response to the big issues facing the area, such as flood risk; and setting out policies against which planning applications can be judged.
The committee of the great and the good who will undertake this exercise comprises nine councillors, purportedly comprising three each from Boston, South Holland and County Hall – although closer examination indicates a subtle imbalance.
Our “local” contingent is Councillor Peter Bedford, - who is also a county councillor - Councillor Colin Brotherton and Councillor Richard Leggott.
South Holland is represented by Councillor Howard Johnson, Councillor Bryan Alcock and Councillor Roger Gambba-Jones, whilst the County Council representatives are Councillor Michael Brookes – who is also a Boston borough councillor - Councillor Graham Dark, who also sits on South Holland District Council, and Councillor Eddy Poll, another South Holland Councillor who is also the Deputy Leader of Lincolnshire County Council.
This, of course, gives the majority on the committee a South Holland District Council flavour. We’ll say no more about that.
What we would say, though is that the membership comprises old-school, long serving councillors – and given that they are supposed to be helping to shape the future of our districts we would have hoped that there might have been a younger member or two on board.
It also seems rather pointless planning almost twenty years ahead.
As recently as ten years ago, who could have foreseen the dramatic population changes in Boston which threw all the best laid plans of committees such as this into complete chaos?
Who could have foreseen the economic disaster that befell the country, and which has led to vast cuts in local government finance that has meant a complete reappraisal of all the local plans made in the last two or three years?
And to be honest – whilst public consultation is something of a buzzword these days – does anyone seriously believe that the public will set aside a week to wade through hundreds of thousands of words of councilspeak and submit their suggestions?


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