Yet again, Boston is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A report in Wednesday’s Daily Mail  – and read by millions more on the newspaper’s website – put  Boston at the head of a list of the  “Dirty Dozen” councils paying themselves colossal increases in allowances. “What recession? Councillors give themselves 'completely unjustifiable' 28% pay rise,” proclaimed the headline. 


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The story added that the increases had been condemned by local government minister Bob Neill as “completely unjustifiable.” Nonetheless, council leader Peter Bedford made a lame attempt, claiming that allowances for the authority “lagged far behind all others in Lincolnshire”  - which may simply be because our leaders are worth less … or should that be worthless? It may be true, but it doesn’t change anything. Boston has awarded its 32 elected members a 28%   increase which pushes the basic allowance for a councillor with no special responsibilities – which in these cabinet dominated days is most of them - from £2,378 a year to £3,052. A further increase to £3,727 followed this spring, and next year there will be another rise to £4,400. This will amount to 85% since 2010, pushing basic “pay” from £46 to £85 a week.


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Publicity enthusiast Councillor Yvonne Gunter is apparently undeterred by the absence of a Borough Council bulletin for August – in which could normally be expected to include several photographs of her. In another ground breaking move – similar to the one which saw her included as a portfolio holder on a commemorative plaque alongside the mayor – we note that a report prepared on her behalf by an officer on allotment strategy includes a large colour portrait above her “foreward” (sic) to the document. It has until now not been the norm for a bog standard report to be graced with a 4x4 inch photo of a portfolio holder. The only time we can recall such illustration previously is with the borough’s annual report, or specially produced documents, where top rankers’ photos have been used for illustration.

We had a case of the “Prince Harry in LA pictures shock” in miniature this week, after a reader sent us some photos that appeared on a Facebook page showing one of our local councillors in a less than glamorous light. The councillor in question – the borough’s youngest member, Tory Aaron Spencer, who represents Five Village ward – was pictured slouched in a chair variously puffing on a Churchill-sized cigar and upending a bottle of Glenfiddich  – one of the world’s most famous and expensive whiskies – to his lips. Our reader commented: “. .. these photos set a disgusting example, for both an elected representative and for other young people. Swilling whisky from the bottle is what we have come to expect from the yobs which blight our towns on a Friday night. I am not trying to be a killjoy, and young people should have fun. But the image there has more in common with the Bullingdon Club before a riot. For a councillor it’s a disgrace.” It’s a truism these days that people in the public eye – and that includes councillors – must be mindful of their behaviour at all times, so we broached the issue with Councillor Spencer. His initial response was to roll with the punch, and say: “The Facebook photos were taken by a 'friend' at a small private function. The picture shows a posed shot of me apparently drinking from the bottle. I have to admit that I don't have the constitution to gulp strong liquor straight from the bottle, but sipping it from a glass of course doesn't have quite the same 'photographic' appeal! Clearly, on the face of it this does not set a good example, but given that the photo is posed and it was taken in private it's perhaps not quite the same as the headline could suggest? I wonder if this is analogous to the recent Vegas Pool Party?  Of course I'm a local councillor, and he's third in line to the throne, but only one of us was photographed apparently drinking from a bottle at home.” We would have shown you the pictures  – which have since been removed from the page in question – so that you could judge for yourselves  but Councillor Spencer subsequently gave us a lecture on copyright law and the need for permission to reproduce them. As we weren’t too exercised about that, we said that we would instead describe them, at which point we received an e-mail including an extract from the Press Complaints Commission guidelines on privacy and concluding: “I think you agree that publishing this story is a violation of my privacy as it was at my home and is really none of the public's business. So I would suggest you don't publish anything about my private life, and I must say I will take it further if you do.” Incidentally one of the controversial “private” pictures of “cigar chomping” is the profile photo  on Councillor Spencer’s own Facebook page - on which he offers the basic information “19 years old. Thinks suits are awsome cuz lets face it people they are!  drinks whiskey and sherry.  gets by with a little help from his friends. :)” He also styles himself “Arron Cllr Spencer” – a bit like Alfred, Lord Tennyson!

Whilst litter is a nuisance in itself, when it gets mangled by mowers it becomes a hazard. A reader who complained after his dog cut a paw on a sharp-edged can – sculpted by a mower – has written to Boston Borough Council to complain. Despite assurances that staff carry out a litter pick before they start, the item  pictured on the right was left behind the other day. Our reader told the powers that be: “After last week’s bad publicity caused by the council’s grounds maintenance team and the cemetery I would have thought you would have all bucked up your ideas, but you all obviously hold the public and ratepayers - or dare I even say customers - with so much contempt it beggars belief.”
If you thought that giving away £1,000 of council taxpayers’ money so that people could chalk on the pavements to celebrate National Volunteering Week was a waste of money, then take a deep breath before you read on. Boston Town Area Committee gave the money to our old friends the South Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Service for the event in July. With obvious prudence, the  CVS managed to spend the exact sum -  £455.40 on room hire and £544.60 on marketing, publicity and materials. The event was dogged by bad weather, and as a result, a lot of the materials were left over. Now, the SLCVS are asking permission to use the leftovers at the forthcoming Community Showcase on 9^th September. With such a large amount of money being spent, we think that BTAC might have insisted on the purchase of materials on a sale or return basis. That way we might have got some of our money back for use on more worthwhile projects.
But it seems that BTAC is something of a spendthrift committee, with  little interest in where the money goes. It also made a grant of £5,000 to fund the disastrous Jubilee celebrations in Central Park in June - which included items such as £425 for stage hire, £490 for sound equipment, £65 on medals, £150 for pens and mugs and around £1,000 for stewards and staff costs. You will be pleased to know that the cabbages for the world green bowls championship cost taxpayers nothing at all - they were donated! However, despite this and other spending, the total came to £2460.62 - less than half. All very thrifty, but questions are now being asked about what has happened to the remaining £2539.38!
However,  the bill to beat the band is the one disclosed by Independent Councillor Carol Taylor in her blog last week. It’s for the cost of hosting the Olympic torch as it passed between Wrangle and Boston for 15 minutes and through Boston itself for half-an-hour.  Items purchased included £2,780 worth of traffic signs, £4,916 for crowd barriers and traffic cones, whilst event and health and safety staff overtime claims totalled £3,772 -  although given that the event occurred in the daytime, we’re a little baffled by the need for overtime. We also mentioned at the time the difference in cost between buying and hiring crowd barriers. The latter is much cheaper, but given the pristine state of the barriers that we saw,  we guess that the council opted for the dearer alternative. All told, the cost of this event came to £14,727 – and at that price, we have to question whether it was worth it. Regionally, Boston got a nanosecond’s exposure on the BBC’s Look North, and that was about the long and the short of it. And what about all those traffic signs? Presumably, they are no use for anything else. Do they have a scrap value, we wonder.
Interest in local news continues to decline. This week the Audit Bureau of Circulation published the latest figures for weekly newspaper sales between January and  June, with the  percentage change year on year. These showed that the Boston Standard sold 8,236 copies a week  - down 1.9%  - whilst the Boston Target  shifted 15,193 copies – a fall of  20.7%.  Ironically, the news came as the Standard gets a mention in the Guardian’s media pages, which said:  “A motivated staff  have helped lift sales slightly (not according to the ABC figures) and a commitment to local digital journalism helped boost web audiences by 200%. And while the overall total of 25,000 monthly uniques (single visits) is modest, when you have 250 newspapers across your group, the numbers can add up.” But on a gloomier note,  the story adds that is it hard to see how  the  parent company’s  hopes of windfalls from selling company property and  a possible  merger with a rival can offset “ the headwinds that are making it so it hard to sustain investment in newspapers in Boston and elsewhere.”
We see that the Bank Holiday weekend has meant a bonus for this week’s free puff for “Boston Labour Councillors” in our weekly “newspapers.” Normally their Wednesday blog contribution is the same as their letter to the editor, in that it is often the only locally relevant piece of the week. However, this week sees one letter about housing benefit payments and another about disability hate crime – both of them sourced from the blog. We cannot understand why our newspapers so slavishly give Labour a weekly platform like this. Often the letters have no relevance to Boston, but have become a publication habit that our editors seem reluctant to break.
Boston Borough Council wasn’t kidding when it reported that “The Mayor of Boston hosted a small reception for the local elite athletes to offer congratulations and support to them on their achievements and future sporting goals.” Only three sporting youngsters from the Borough are among the 50 athletes across the county supported by the Lincolnshire Elite Athlete Programme – one aged 15, and two thirteen year-olds - and they turned out in force! We did hear that more people were invited than attended  – but the good news for those at a meeting elsewhere in the Worst Street building was the offer of a huge mountain of left over sandwiches!
Despite objections, Boston Borough Council has approved plans to build a new hotel with as many as 80 bedrooms at Wyberton. A report says that the scheme “will add to the leisure and tourism opportunities and attractiveness of the area. Frankly, Boston seems very well served for hotel accommodation at present, and we have certainly never heard of people having a problem getting booked in. Meanwhile, we hear of concerns among residents of Puritan Way, where householders have received a letter telling them that a new Marina is going to be excavated in a nearby field adjoining the river, and they have obvious concerns about the bank being breached so close to residential properties. The idea is to accommodate 161 boats on a site covering almost 18 acres. Whilst there are ambitious plans for a Fen Waterways Link at some unspecified point in the future, we feel that projects like this are putting the cart before the horse. Big new hotels and massive marinas are one thing -  but creating capacity for hordes of visitors fails to address the issue of what Boston has to offer when people come here. At the moment the answer is “not a lot.” As we have stressed on countless previous occasions, Boston needs a realistically crafted, well thought out plan which relies not on buzzwords and catchphrases but co-ordinated and well-constructed action.
Finally .... a chocolate teapot is something that is not thought to be  suitable for purpose – and we found just such a thing in the small ads in this week’s Boston Target.

 

A disabled wheelchair? Could a puncture repair kit provide the answer?

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

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

 

The phrase too many cooks spoil the broth could well become a mantra for Boston if we get many more good-doers.
Yesterday, we mentioned the Hollywood treatment that the town is getting through the Alchemy Project - which is to spend a year and at least £70,000 on films, poems and the like to solve the town’s tensions over inward migration.
Meanwhile, a similar project costing £2.5million over three years will see large photographs stuck on the sides of local lorries criss-crossing Europe, and “art” taken to the remote villages.
Two such projects sound like one too many to us, but there are other organisations as well which are trying to “promote” Boston.
Principal among these is Boston Business “Improvement” District – which is about as much help to business improvement as a bicycle is to a fish.
And in poking around we also stumbled across the almost forgotten but apparently still active Boston Area Partnership.
We say “apparently” still active because – although its website is out of date – it has a community plan covering the period between 2008 and 2018, and was certainly alive and kicking according to Boston Borough Council’s website a few months ago.
BAP was launched in 2002 and brings together the major public service providers in the area, such as the police, NHS, Boston College, Boston Borough Council and Lincolnshire County Councils, together with representatives from the voluntary and community sector and private sector. 
Its aim is “to improve the local quality of life and regeneration of the Borough through improved planning and delivery of services and activities” – which is what we thought the council was supposed to be doing!
BAP’s mission statement says: “Overall, our vision is for Boston to be a more modern, vibrant and dynamic place to live, work and visit - a better destination for residents, shoppers, visitors, commerce and industry.”
It describes Boston’s six ambitions as a capital letter intensive: “Getting Around, Making Boston a Destination, Generating Prosperity, Feeling Safe and Part of Your Community, Being Healthy, and Creating a Greener and More Sustainable Future.”
Boston BID meanwhile – which costs local business £130,000 a year through an enforced levy -   pledges such esoteric goals as:  “safe and secure, perception and image, clean and attractive, accessible, a voice for business support, and delivery of match funding.”
Apart from the latter, which doesn’t seem to have happened, the two lists seem broadly comparable, and in fact overlap in some areas.
We know how much BID costs - and the lack of matched funding means that the lion’s share of its income is spent on staffing and administration.
But what about BAP?
Its list of executive board members is hopelessly out of date, and one of the liaison co-ordinators is listed as “BAP/BARC Support Officer” at Boston Borough Council. – That’s despite the fact that BARC – the Boston Area Regeneration Company set up in 2006 – was wound up last year just weeks after being condemned by Audit Commission  inspectors who found that it squandered money on feasibility studies rather than actual projects.
“BARC represents poor value for money as a means of delivering the economic development and wider regeneration aims of the borough,” the commission said.
“It is a significant weakness that value for money of the first three years’ operation of BARC, and its £400,000 running costs, has not been regularly reviewed.”
All told, it’s a pretty unsettling picture.
We have a council which is supposed to have a vision for Boston, working with two other organisations, one of which is achieving little or nothing at considerable cost, and another which appears to be in semi-hibernation with a document library that is years out of date, and minutes of some meetings as old as April 2010.
Leaven that lacklustre recipe with some less than glittering movie making and a multi-million pound poster campaign and what have you got?
A clear need for a drastic reappraisal of how Boston is promoted for the future.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

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

 

 

We wonder whether the dismal bank holiday weekend could have been brightened had we taken up Boston Borough Council’s invitation to “Come join (sic) us for two walks in and around Boston as we explore Boston's history, past and present, and look at the many changes to the town over those years.”
Whilst the inference is that the council was organising the event, it was in fact the work of something called The Alchemy Project “about breaking down barriers.”
From February this year until March 2013, the project is engaging with a wide cross-section of Boston's culturally diverse communities as it attempts to unravel the myths, misunderstandings and prejudices associated with new arrivals into the town and its surrounding area.
On the group’s website, this included a 20-minute video in which contributors appear in a window within the main picture talking about Boston and the impact of immigration – and comprise a number of the “usual suspects.”
Watch it and you will see what we mean.
A Lincolnshire-based  organisation called cultural solutions uk  (no capital letters) is devising “a bespoke programme of creative activities including creative writing, film making, drama, dance and music” … “to develop confidence in people so they can learn new skills; express themselves through the arts and ultimately make new friends."
Behind this scheme is JUST Lincolnshire, the county’s “equality and human rights organisation,” with funding from the Community Development Foundation - a government quango with £80 million to burn -  plus another £70,000 from the Home Office.
The Alchemy team includes a creative writing facilitator, a film maker, Lincolnshire’s poet laureate, and an arts development officer.
Regular readers will know our views on this sort of thing – frankly we can’t see how it will achieve anything.
And of course, it is running in tandem with a three-year arts project for Boston and South Holland which won £2.5 million from the Arts Council to take art of all forms to the community and into often isolated rural areas where access can be limited.
The main focus of this project is to display big photographs on the lorries that travel to and from Europe, connecting our local work force with the places and cultures they visit.
If you can think of better ways to spend this sort of money, then please don’t write and tell us, as we are sure that it would take too long to read all your e-mails!
We felt that the title Alchemy seemed a little unkind, as the general definition of the word refers to turning base metal into gold – and whilst Boston certainly needs pulling up by its bootstraps, we don’t believe that it has sunk so low as to be considered base.
All this stuff seems to be a cockeyed approach to improving relationships between the indigenous population and the migrant community, but -  whilst it will clearly keep a whole host of luvvies in work -  we don't see it achieving much else.
According to one report, the borough council task and finish group into immigration was set to publish its findings by the end of this month – i.e. Friday – but another account says that it will not be until September.
Meanwhile, the Boston Protest March group is again becoming restless – as it did around the time of the final meeting of the group.
It is proposing a static protest this time – and Boston Borough Council is again putting obstacles in the way … as it did at the meeting  on holding a protest march at the end of June.
“The response from council is not good, as it has given us too many hoops to jump through - one being insurance, which we have no funding for,” wrote organiser Dean Everitt on the group’s Facebook page.
Reaction from fellow members was to accuse the council of trying to fob the protesters off, and also of lying - as it appears that insurance is not a requirement for a static protest.
The last time we looked, a meeting had been called for the end of the week to discuss such a protest – with the rallying call “so let the planning commence.”
Are we alone in thinking that the gulf between what local people feel, and that  solutions such as making films and writing poems to bring the community together is far too wide?

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

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

 

 
We’re slipping into holiday mode a little early, with a version of Friday’s Week Ending feature appearing a day ahead of schedule, as we know that many of you enjoy a long weekend over the August Bank Holiday period.

Our pieces  this week about the chaos in the Market Place stuck a chord with new reader Sandra Overton, who e-mailed to say: “ I could not have put it better myself. I was in the fiasco of Boston market Place on Friday and a lady in front of me almost got scooped up by a car coming out of Bank Street thinking he was on a race track. Several pedestrians said – ‘AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN.’ Where are the signs to say that one should only park in marked bays?  I could not find one. As for the buses … that’s another story. I only found your site last week being told of it by a friend. It's brilliant. Keep up the good work.”

Talking of the Market Place chaos, we saw this photograph the other day and it occurred that if our “leaders” were still looking for ways to make life even more difficult for Boston pedestrians and shoppers, they might consider this as a next big step.

The photo was taken in Bangkok, and shows shoppers and stallholders fleeing from the path of a regular train service that runs through a market. A bit like the Into Town bus service, the train sounds a warning just one minute before rolling through. Once it’s gone, the traders and shoppers carry on with life as normal. We’re sure that our leaders would see it as a “visitor attraction.”

Still with the Market Place, after Monday’s mention of the now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t petition against the closure of the Assembly Rooms, the absent petition appeared as if by magic.  Thanks for letting us know, Boston Borough Council. Unusually – and doubtless because of the dubious  urgency surrounding the sale, the petition will close relatively soon – at the end of next month, so it’s as well to hurry if you want to join the seventeen people who have signed so far. You will find the link here.

Among the comments left on the site,  we felt that the one reproduced above summed things up best of all.
During the week  we mentioned the appointment of Civil Enforcement Officers – that means traffic wardens  – by the firm APCOA to police car parking for Lincolnshire County Council from mid October. Boston is one of only eight towns where vacancies are being advertised. The others are Sleaford, Louth, Skegness, Spalding, Stamford, Grantham and Lincoln. There is no indication as to whether more than one post is required at any of the locations, but given the hours needed, we would think that a single post holder would be a little stretched. No pay scale is mentioned, but a similar job in the south of England is offering £13,603 to £14,331 a year. There are just four weeks left in which to apply. It has a cheap and nasty feel about it, and somehow we don’t expect the dramatic solution that has been promised for Boston’s parking problems to be very likely.
A recent response to a complaint that a couple of Boston Borough Councillors had breached the Members Code of Conduct by not declaring relevant interests on their Declaration of Pecuniary Interest registration forms, has produced mixed results. One concerned Councillor Derek Richmond and his directorship of Boston Business “Improvement” District. The decision by Chief Executive Richard Harbord was that as he received no remuneration he didn’t need to declare his appointment. It may be true, but it still fails to address the difficult situation that Councillor Richmond may well find himself in  as a director at future BID meetings – which Mr Harbord insists is where his first duty lies ...
The second complaint referred to Councillor Yvonne Gunter, who we see from this week’s local “newspapers”  has now added Sport to her “leisure services, parks and open spaces, country parks and reserves, playing fields, tree management, crematoria and cemeteries, allotments and grounds maintenance” portfolio. Councillor Gunter had declared no employment on her form – although elsewhere on the internet her services are available as “Lincolnshire’s Premier Wedding Planner.” Mr Harbord reported:   “Having communicated with Councillor Gunter, it appears there was an oversight on her registration form in respect of her occasional work as a wedding planner.  This has now been corrected and I thank you for your vigilance in bringing this to my attention.”

 Things such as this highlight a need for vigilance – and also clarification. Although all councillors received guidance concerning what should go on these forms and what should not, there is still confusion. Quite a number of retired councillors – and there are quite a number of retired councillors – declare their membership of Boston Borough Council as an “employment, office, trade, profession or vocation,” whilst others do not. If the ones who make such a declaration are wrong, then it should be removed. If, however their declaration is appropriate – then the others need to come into line.
What are we to make of the latest titbit from the Lincolnshire Research Observatory that the latest census releases show that Boston’s population increased by 15.9% between 2001 and 2011. This is more than 50% higher than the county rate of growth. and twice that of the national rate. Boston experienced the largest increases in its population in the age bands representing people in their 20’s. Theoretically, this creates a case for  more central funding, but it also fuels the argument put forward by groups who want a cap on inward migration. It will be interesting to see what Boston Borough Council has to say about it.
Amidst the debate on the closing of the public toilets in the Assembly Rooms, we noticed a potential relocation site which people might use without noticing the difference.

 At first glance, can you differentiate between the toilets in the Market Place and the cells in the nearby Guildhall, where the Pilgrim Fathers were not briefly imprisoned before their flight to the Americas? If you’re puzzled, the cells are on the left and the loos are on the right … or is it the other way around?

As we said at the start, we’re heading into holiday mode a little early, as we know that many of our readers take a longer break at the end of August. We won’t be publishing again until Wednesday 29^th August – but we are not on holiday. If you would like to e-mail us with information or questions, we are here to help. And if anything interesting crops up before Wednesday, then we hope to be the first to tell you. Have a great break.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

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

A secondary aspect of the Market Place mess that we talked about yesterday has been highlighted in an e-mail from a reader.

“Following on from the double debacle to enhance the Market Place and also press forward with the sale of Assembly Rooms, am I the only person to notice that the Herbert Ingram Memorial now appears to be a regular meeting place for can-waving, guffawing, arm-waving and shadow-boxing aficionados who often start to gather from 9 o’clock in the morning? 
“If the council are serious  – which we know they are not – about developing a culture in which families, visitors and people who live and work around the Market Place can go about their business unhindered, then there is an awful lot of work to do if anyone happens to pass within close proximity to these mostly home-grown idiots.
“Although there are probably no reported ‘incidents’ there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support my views.
“Can we shame the various agencies involved in making Boston “a safe place to live and work in” (council speak) to take some action to stand up for the rights of decent ordinary folk going about their business.
“Probably too much to hope for!”
On our Friday visit to the Market Place, which we reported yesterday, the scene was far from anecdotal.
We watched two real police officers - not PCSOs -  exchanging words with two unintelligible and clearly very drunk people who were slumped one of the benches by the memorial. It was an unsettling scene to say the least.
This one-sided discussion went on for several minutes, and when we returned to the area after doing some shopping that the police had gone, but the drunks were still there, meandering around and engaging passers-by in clearly unwelcome  conversation.
Eventually, they shambled off down Bank Street, leaving us wonder what the point the involvement of the police had been.
Clearly, this is not solving anti-social behaviour problems if the police walk away but the problem remains.
Yesterday, we were reminded that that the police do not have the resources to enforce parking regulations in the Market Place – and now it seems they don’t do much about drunks in high visibility public places.
We fear that the outlook for the Market Place can only get worse.
The portfolio holder responsible for car parks and the town centre, Councillor Derek Richmond, whilst acknowledging the police problems, then seems to overlook his own responsibility.
If a cabinet member has the  job description "Portfolio holder for Car Parks and the Town Centre,"
he needs  live up to it – which means taking action between now and mid-October, rather than waiting until Lincolnshire County Council brings in an outside company to tackle parking problems.
Otherwise the role is nothing more than a posh title, and not worth the paper it is printed on.
And as far as policing is concerned, if Boston Police cannot manage the task, then what about the  larger than life anti-social behaviour team run by Boston Borough Council – remember their poster campaign – who have been strangely silent of late.
Meanwhile, as the saga of the sale of the Assembly Rooms rumbles on, there is mounting speculation –  bordering on certainty –  that the building will become yet another night club.
As we have said before, a worrying aspect of this is that promotes the club scene from being largely out of the general public gaze to the front of the house.
Not only that, but a quick count comes up with at least five existing clubs, and getting on for a dozen “dual purpose” watering holes with music and a club culture within a very short distance. Do we really need so many?
Boston is famous for the rough and tumble that goes on in the wee small hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings, despite efforts by council leader Peter Bedford to minimise matters, when he said in a radio interview last year: “It depends on your outlook. I walked through town with my wife on Saturday night after a concert in Boston Stump and everybody was well behaved. We never saw an issue at all. So it’s how you want to look at things.”
We reckon that there are four cabinet members whose areas are affected by the problems caused by public drinking – which itself is a clear call for action.
If the Assembly Rooms become a nightclub, the potential for trouble is brought to the heart of the town.
With their usual lacklustre approach, the borough council cabinet has adopted a “wait and see” approach to drinking in public places until next April - when new Community Protection Orders are introduced.
For wait and see, read do nothing.
Even though the law may be changed then, that is no reason to sit back with hands in pockets for the next seven months.
At the moment, the police find it hard enough to cross St Botolph’s footbridge into the Market Place to deal with daytime drinking. Next year they will find it impossible for some months as work goes on to replace the bridge, as we are sure that they won't take the long way round – it's just too hard on the feet.
Picture a possible scenario in the not too distant future …
A huge new nightclub … no public toilets in that part of the world … a history of troubled Friday and Saturday nights … a massive £2 million pound arena in which to cause trouble.
Yet still the cabinet fiddles Nero-like. …

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

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

It seems that the chaos in Boston Market Place increases in some sort of perverse ratio to the growing number of complaints about it.

Friday saw us in the Market Place along with many other pedestrians trying to pick their way around cars that were parked where they shouldn’t be, whilst at the same time trying to dodge moving vehicles which were meandering around the area without any real sense of direction, and whose drivers clearly didn’t feel any empathy with those on foot.
The situation is an accident waiting to happen, and whatever fancy plans were drawn up to create one of the first examples of a so-called a "shared space" - where the impact of traffic is reduced, has gone out of the window … if ever it existed.
The thousands of stone setts enjoyed only a brief moment of pristineness. Now they are scarred by skid marks and stained with oil.
The lightly marked areas denoting where parking was allowed were soon disfigured by painted white lines because the builders failed to realise that they were hard to distinguish in wet weather.
But as is so often the case, Boston Borough Council’s “leadership” adopts the jam tomorrow approach.
The council line is that at present, the police are responsible for parking enforcement in the Market Place – but aren’t doing it.
However, it will all come right later in the year when Lincolnshire County Council takes over parking enforcement.
A couple of months ago, the borough issued a news release condemning illegal parking in clear defiance of new signage which states the newly-marked bays only should be used.
The signage was half-heartedly lugged into position for a short while, then the signs remained piled up against the wall of the Ingram Memorial - and by last Friday had disappeared completely.
Although it is claimed that the parking situation will “dramatically” improve once the County Council “takes over” parking regulation, we are inclined to doubt the promises made by various portfoolio holders.
The scheme will cost approximately £1.1 million a year, for which we will get 20 parking wardens who are expected to issue tickets totalling £940,000 a year. The loss will be shared between the county and district councils.
Incidentally, those 20 parking wardens are for the whole county, and no one seems to know how many – or rather how few will be employed in Boston.
Somehow, we can’t believe that there will be an improvement of the dramatic scale promised.
Nor is the County Council actually taking over parking enforcement. In June it awarded the contract to APCOA Parking (UK) Limited, which handles everything from phone calls to the issue of season tickets, registering debts and calling in the bailiffs.
It sounds certain to be popular.
Between now and APCOA’s arrival sometime in October, it looks as though Boston Market Place will continue in its present mess.
But we fervently hope that someone in Worst Street will try to get a grip on the situation in the interim. The cars drive where they please, as do the Into Town buses, and now that the area is more open, they appear to be going faster. Did anyone ever think to discuss the need for greater care with Brylaine’s drivers when the area became a free for all zone.
Our photo at the top of the page says it all – and you can click on it to enlarge it.
The big picture shows the state of play on Friday -  and the three smaller one show the council’s idyllic depiction of the Market Place and  the Continental ambience, and finally, our own photo of what life al fresco is really like – hemmed in by cars.

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

The extraordinary meeting of Boston Borough Council to discuss the secret sale of the town’s Assembly Rooms has been set for 24th September – exactly five weeks from today.
Given the excuse of “urgency” which initially saw the council’s cabinet approve the sale and exclude it from debate – even though there was a full council meeting that same day where it could easily have been included on the agenda – there must now be a few more questions arising.
A lot can happen in five weeks – in fact it is entirely possible that since the sale was approved on 25^th July … almost four weeks ago – it could be completed by the time the council gets round to discussing it.
We would hope that this is not likely to happen, but then so twisted are the workings of the cabinet that we would not rule anything out.
However, given that the Assembly Rooms are Grade II* listed, coupled with the controversy over their sale – which could include the closure of the Market Place public toilets – the sale cannot be completed without appropriate consents,  which include planning permission if  any change of use  is required, together with listed building consent.
A look at the current list of applications submitted to the council shows that none has been made to date.
All this gives breathing space for opponents of the plan.
While most of them have reluctantly acknowledged that the Assembly Rooms have now been so badly neglected by successive councils that a sale is inevitable, the closure of the public toilets is another matter, and one where battle lines have been drawn.
Latest to join the fray is local campaigner Martin Robbins –  who decided to launch a petition on Boston Borough Council’s website.
It reads: “The Assembly Rooms belong to "THE PEOPLE" of Boston. Failure by successive Boston Borough Councils to maintain the building have ruined a listed landmark in Boston, more widely known than the market place.
“This petition urges the council to face its responsibilities and keep and restore the Assembly Rooms as a council owned property.”
Unfortunately, although Mr Robbins says he was told that his petition would be up and running in three working days – which he calculates to be last Monday –  a visit to the hard-to-find-e-petition page on the borough’s website contains no sign of it.
As a result, Mr Robbins has written to selected councillors to complain.
He says: “It seems now in an attempt to stop all dissent against the sale of the Assembly Rooms, all
e-petitions including mine have been removed from the council’s website.
“Are we entering a NEW Russian State here in Boston?
“This is a conversation I had online at the council’s website with Customer Services.
We are in fact NOT Customers, we are in fact the Council’s EMPLOYERS!
Customer Services: “Good morning, how can I help you ?
Martin Robbins: “Could you please inform me as to why my e-petition is not on site?
Customer Services: “Could you give me some more information please …
Martin Robbins: “In fact NO e-petitions are on your website at all, I was sent an email last week saying it would be on your website the beginning of this week. Is this Boston Borough Council’s way of suppressing any objections to the council's plans to sell the Assembly Rooms?
Customer Services: “Unfortunately the gentleman I need to speak to is on leave this week. Could you give me your e-mail address and  ‘phone number and I will get him to contact you first thing Monday morning …”
We wait with bated breath …
Mr Robbins says of his campaign: “I believe the town should keep the Assembly Rooms, refurbish them and the toilets and thus enhance, not further erode, what is after all, our property. They will sell the council’s silver again given half the chance!
As the campaign to save the public toilets, if nothing else, gathers momentum, campaigners have been offered help from the British Toilet Association .
And as far as the building itself is concerned, it may well be that English Heritage will have a view on any future  use.
Then, of course, there is The Georgian Group  – which hope that some local campaigner will contact regarding the sale.
The group is a national charity dedicated to preserving Georgian buildings and gardens, and tells visitors to its website: “Every year we are consulted on over 6,000 planning applications involving demolition or alterations. Our intervention has helped save many Georgian buildings and has protected others from harm. It is often through our influence that a better solution is found.”
 

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

 The plan to sell Boston’s Assembly Rooms with the likely closure of the Market Place public toilets has raised an interesting question as to whether there has been any consultation with members of the many groups likely to be affected. This sort of thing is becoming tirelessly repetitive as our so-called “leaders” continue their policy of “we know best” in the face of reasoned and sensible objections to their proposals. Ironically, one group likely to be seriously affected will be the disabled – who may now have to spend much of their “free” 30-minutes’ parking struggling from one side of the town to the other to use the loos. Why it is that the Tories have singled out disabled people for such bad treatment we don’t know – but it is starting to look like a pattern.
And the problem is not confined just to Boston We hadn’t realized how lucrative the disabled were becoming to our local authorities until we learned that Lincolnshire County Council now charges £10 to issue a new blue badge. The excuse for this is that the latest badges are harder to copy and therefore will reduce fraud. How serious a problem this is, we don’t know – but what we do know is that a piece of thoughtlessness has robbed badge holders of the use of the convenient leather wallets that they almost universally used.  These cheap carriers opened like a book with the badge on one side and the time clock on the other. Although the new badges will fit the old case, they bear a fancy hologram. This has led to a County Council edict: “Do not place this new badge inside a wallet with a clear plastic pocket as this may cause damage to the hologram when exposed to high temperatures.” So, a simple and cheap badge and clock that could be displayed together have been replaced by two items that could easily become separated. Many thanks for that.
Another point concerning the closure of the Market Place toilets that it would be foolish to ignore is the possibility of a visitor backlash. A stallholder at the newly introduced craft market held in Boston on alternate Thursdays says that when the council in Newark sold its public toilets to raise funds and decided not to replace them, an immediate result was a dramatic drop in visitor numbers. This was followed by declining trade, which led to a drop in market stalls and then the closure of a number of surrounding independent small shops. Hopefully the Tory wrecking crew might take this concern on board as well.
We’re so excited about the plans for Christmas in Boston which we read about in the local papers this week. Until now, we had never considered that “bubble cars dressed as elves” might be deemed “festive figures” – but we’re an open-minded lot, and are willing to give the idea a chance. We’re also glad to see that local “dignitaries” will be attending, as Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Councillor Yvonne Gunter in attendance. What baffles us a little is the claim by the organisers - Boston Business “Improvement” District – that the idea of the event is to “try to get Boston on the map.” This daft phrase is trotted out time and again by people who fail to realise that the town has been in the atlas for hundreds of years. What they mean is that they want to promote Boston – something which the BID has spectacularly failed to do since its inception.
We note yet another case of Boston’s relegation from the minds of the great and the good  in an interview with Lincolnshire’s Chief Constable Neil Rhodes. He tells us that “he is aware that there are fewer officers on the beat” – well spotted, that man – and goes on to promise that we will get a “clearly identified” local inspector, adding: “So if you live in Market Rasen, Louth or Horncastle, you will have a team of people that should be seen regularly on patrol, and they should be known to you by name and always approachable. These are the real pillars of the neighbourhood policing approach.” Of course, he was probably plucking names out of the air when he picked Market Rasen, Louth and  Horncastle to illustrate his point. But the fact remains that no-one seems these days  to think to mention Boston – which ironically is policed by a team that is seldom seen out on the streets – except, it appears, when the is the opportunity for some decent overtime.
This week’s award for the most inaccurate reporting in three paragraphs or less goes to the Boston Standard.  Aside from the fact that the town’s ALDI store closed for four days, and not “several weeks,”  and that it reopened yesterday and not on Thursday of last week as the story suggests,  the piece is absolutely spot on.
It is disappointing to learn that the borough’s now infamous Jubilee Fountain is still lying in pieces at the council’s Fen Road site -  despite promises to reinstate it at its former location in Central Park after it was vandalised soon after being switched on some two months ago.  Its return is looking unlikely now that the base has been filled with flowers – but frankly it looks all the better for it. The only good news in the whole sorry affair is that we are told that the contentious plaque engraved to mark the event has also disappeared as well.
Is it a sign of the times …?  So many complaints are being made about the way Boston Borough Council is operating, that we were scarcely surprised to read this in a recent letter from an officer to a less than happy member of the public: “Thank you for your complaint dated … in which I understand you are complaining about the way in which your complaint of … has been handled.” It could only happen in Boston …
We wonder whether there has been some sort of coup within the Boston Borough Council chamber. This week’s customary letter from “Boston’s Labour councillors” is signed instead by “Boston Borough Councillors.” Hmmm.
Finally, we’re not normally given to rhapsodising in verse at Boston Eye, and even though the following contribution  from former Boston Borough Councillor John Storry was slightly “off message,” it made us laugh so much that we thought we would include our readers in the cheering-up process. After all, life in the town these days is scarcely a hoot. Mr Storry wrote after learning of the issue of free condoms to participants in the Olympic Games, and wondered -  if there had been an official response - if it might have been on the following lines: -

Said Lord Coe in Committee “We need to address

An issue which could cause one hell of a mess

After thousands of condoms were freely donated

To allow all the athletes to get themselves mated!

I’ve had a quick word with the medical chap

Who insists there’s no danger of catching the Clap

But I fear that he’s missing the point, so to speak

They’ll all be shagged out by the end of the week!

Each event’s guaranteed to fall flat on its face

(Who’d sweep up the condoms before every race?)

And the females would win every time, so it’s said

‘cos their male counterparts would be ‘rutting’ in bed!

There is only one way to avoid this impasse

To ensure that the Games don’t fall flat on their ass

We must sponsor a race for confirmed alcoholics

Embellished by striptease and sexual frolics.

Even though there’d be problems programming events

(The Bedouins would probably want it in tents!)

But that might cause many white athletes to frown

Unless the Australians performed upside down!

 Respecting the foibles of every contender

Means taking full notice of everyone’s gender

And if that should outrage some Conservative buff

Tell them “If you don’t like it, we’re sorry, but ‘Tough!”

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

Today sees an election for a vacant a seat on Wyberton Parish Council* following the death of former councillor and former Boston Mayor Albert Tebbs - with four candidates chasing the vacancy.
As we pointed out last week, none of them has declared any party political affiliation, and whilst two have call themselves “Independent” candidates, the other two have not entered anything at all in the “description” box.
One of these is Conservative County Councillor Paul Skinner, who also stood unsuccessfully for the Tories in last year’s borough council elections.
Somewhat tongue in cheek, we asked him whether this is because a declaration as a Conservative representative might be deemed to be counterproductive to the chance of success – to which he replied: “I believe at parish council level all should work for the benefit of the community. Party politics do not apply.”
Mr Skinner - who won Boston South for the Conservatives from former BBI leader Richard Austin at the County Council elections in June 2009 - points to a track record in Wyberton that has supported the community in various ways, and adds: “Until I stood in the borough elections nobody knew which political party I favoured.”
The point he makes about party politics at parish level is one that is often made – but we think that it is relevant higher up the local governmental chain as well.
We wonder how much better Boston might be doing if the ruling Conservatives had been less determined to scrawl their shaky political signature across the current chapter in the borough’s history rather than to apply themselves to the problems the borough faces.
Boston does not need to be run by a political mafia that seems more intent on getting its own way rather than doing what’s best for Boston and its people.
What we need is a group of concerned individuals with Boston first and foremost in their hearts and minds.
Nothing that our current leadership has done to date has any relevance to the Conservatives with a big ‘C.’
Many of its achievements to date could well have been notched up by the Official  Monster Raving Loony Party rather than the Tories – in fact we sometimes wonder whether there is a closet Loony faction within the cabinet.
Looking back to last year’s elections, a hastily cobbled together manifesto – drawn up by a party that confessed afterwards that it  did not expect to win – promised: “YOU the public can be assured that we will look after YOU and work for the people who need our services the MOST.”
Forgive us if we say that the claim now soundsmore than a little hollow in the wake of the disabled parking brouhaha and the clandestine selling-off of the Assembly Rooms with the likely closure of the public toilets as a result.
The latter also gave the lie to the promise to “bring an end to ‘behind closed door’ policies” since this important issue of the disposal of a 190 year-old listed publicly owned  building was done … err … behind closed doors.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the manifesto fibbed on: “We will publish salaries and consult over expenditure and investments in our community. All councillors and the Boston Borough Council Executive (are) to be open and accountable to YOU the tax payer.”
It is impossible to imagine how much better things might have been if our leaders – rather than trying to dress up in the top hat and tails of their masters – had simply put aside party politics and done their level best for Boston.
Paul Skinner is right to declare that party politics has no place at parish pump level – and the current situation in Boston Borough shows that it should have no place there, either.

*Four candidates are contesting the vacant seat on Wyberton Parish Council. They are: Independent candidates John Edward Jenkinson and Simon Robert Wilkinson, Henry Herbert Matiti, and Paul Anthony Skinner. Voting is between  7am and 10pm today at the Parish Hall on London Road in Wyberton.

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

Although the "leadership" of Boston Borough Council behaves as if it can do as it pleases, there is, in fact, a constitution in place so that the council can be held to some sort of account – and a clause in it is now being used to try to force a debate on the sale of the Assembly Rooms.
It comes from Boston District Independent Councillor Alison Austin, who told Boston Eye: “Along with many other borough councillors I am most concerned that the decision to sell the Assembly Rooms has been made by the Cabinet.
“The decision may involve the closure of the public toilets serving the Market Place. The Cabinet seem determined that there should be no debate among other councillors on the matter and the Mayor has refused to allow a ‘call in’ to scrutinise the decision.
“I, supported by others, have therefore invoked a clause in the council constitution demanding a special council meeting to debate the sale and its long term implications.”
The other signatories are fellow BDI Councillors Richard Austin and Helen Staples,  Labour’s Paul Gleeson, plus Independents Ossy Snell, and Carol Taylor.
Their petition to the Mayor, Councillor Colin Brotherton reads: “We the undersigned wish to invoke Clause 3.1(iv) of Part 4 (section A) of the constitution of Boston Borough Council.
“We call upon the Mayor to call an Extraordinary Meeting of Full Council to discuss issues relating to the sale of the Assembly Rooms and the lack of opportunity for members to debate or scrutinize such an important decision.”
The clause concerning calling an extraordinary meeting permits “any five members of the Council if they have signed a requisition presented to the Mayor and he/she has refused to call a meeting or has failed to call a meeting within seven days of the presentation of the requisition.
Councillor Austin explained: “The decision to dispose of one of Boston’s most prominent buildings together with the only public toilets in the Market Place has been made by just seven councillors.
“I was appalled that such a momentous decision was railroaded through without any chance for scrutiny by other councillors.
“It could have been thought of as ‘a good time to bury bad news’- just at the start of the holiday season and the opening of the Olympics.
“How can such a decision be classed as ‘time sensitive?’ That smacks of bad management; something we’ve come to expect from this administration.
Interestingly, as far back as January, it was reported that three potential buyers were interested in the Assembly Rooms, which raises questions of why the sale had to be rushed through as a matter of “urgency” more than six months later.
There is also the matter of the price.
The building has been on sale for £445,000, and the council will be imposing a covenant on the purchaser demanding that the Assembly Rooms must be redecorated outside within the first 12 months and every then every five years. The colours and materials must comply with the listed building requirements.
It’s reckoned that this will cost around £150,000 – and whether the cost has been taken into account with the asking price is not known.
A previous attempt to offload the building into private hands four years ago ended in failure - when councillors rejected a plan to turn it into a night club.
This time around, though, it’s thought that the council won’t be so fussy, as dumping the building that it has systematically neglected for decades is now the priority – rather than any concern about the public impact of such a move.
Another unasked question is what the council will do with a possible windfall of nearly half a million pounds.
So far, the Conservative leadership has demonstrated a particular flair where wasting money is concerned, and it is to be hoped that if nothing else, a careful watch is kept on how so much money is spent.
What a shame that all this should be happening in the 190^th anniversary year of the building’s opening.
Talk of the council’s constitution made us think of the borough’s coat of arms – and it is with a deep sense of regret that we have decided to republish our take on the borough’s coat of arms – which first appears more than four years ago.
We first highlighted the pie in the sky, the fishy smells, and the waffle to cover boobs as a critique of the late BBI style of management.
But  now it seems that the wheel has turned full circle – and with hindsight  the BBI was perhaps not as bad as it seemed.
A definition of the various symbols which appear in the coat of arms  includes the information that the motto Serve With Amity “applies especially to public relations.”
Given the way that the Tories have roughed up the people who elected them since they tricked us into voting for them – we feel that our amendment Serve With Enmity is far more apposite.

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

If the leadership of Boston Borough Council thinks the outcry over the secret sale of the Assembly Rooms will go away if stick their fingers firmly in their ears and bury their heads deeply enough in the sand, then they could be in for a disappointment.

The Assembly Rooms issue is a game of two halves – of the building – about which we will have more in tomorrow’s blog – and the retention of the public toilets as an essential facility for local people.
It was only reluctantly that Council Leader Peter Bedford confirmed the sale of the building to our local newspapers, after an earlier report in Boston Eye.
The press and public were excluded from the cabinet meeting on 25^th July where the decision was taken on the grounds that the discussion involved the likely disclosure of exempt information.
Afterwards, a council spokesman said no details of the discussion would be released due to “commercially sensitive” information.
But once his hand was forced, Councillor Bedford told the Boston Standard that the building - on sale for £445,000 - had been sold, subject to contract, and that the cabinet took the decision rather than the full council due to “urgency” – with the Mayor ruling against any attempt to “call in” the decision … which would have referred it back to the whole council for debate.
This struck a hollow note with many people – particularly as the full council was meeting that very same day.
And questions are now being raised about why – since urgency was so paramount – there is still no sign of any planning application for change of use of the building ... which  was listed 63 years ago, making it one of the first in the country to be so.
Meanwhile, Independent Councillor Carol Taylor has received an offer of support from an interesting source in her campaign to save the public toilets from closure.
Gillian Kemp, a member of the management committee of an organisation known as the British Toilet Association www.britloos.co.uk   has been in touch to say that she read about the problems of the Assembly Rooms and the public toilets “with dismay.”
Ms Kemp says that: “When public toilets close down there are many health issues that can arise which affect a large proportion of the population.  If we are to embrace the government’s idea of an all-inclusive Big Society, public toilets are a necessary requirement for our future health.
“In the Nineteenth Century,  public toilets were introduced and the UK had the best toilets in the world.
“In the Twentieth Century public toilets could be found in a wide variety of locations – parks, seaside, towns, cities – some with child friendly facilities.
“In the Twenty-first Century 40% of public toilets are now closed and the UK is no longer has the best toilet provision – although there are regional variations.  Communities and transport systems are being built without toilet facilities.”
She says that a lack of public toilets ignores a basic human requirement, affects peoples’ quality of life, incurs additional costs and affects the local economy. Among the advantages of public toilets are their contribution to the sustainability of communities, supports for a 24 hour economy, higher retail turnover, and more visitors.
Ms Kemp told Councillor Taylor: “Please don't give up the fight! If I can help further in any way, don't hesitate to contact me.
We wonder how our non-listening leadership plans to handle this latest debacle.

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

Amidst the debate about the sale of the Assembly Rooms, it’s easy to forget that the disposal of the Haven Arts Centre is progressing quietly along in the background.
Remember the Haven?
The big glass box of art and artefacts -  a twee subtitle that doomed it from the start.
This two million pound disaster opened in 2005, and closed again in 2010 in a cost-cutting measure by Boston Borough Council, having completely failed to engage the interest of the Boston public.
In modern artistic terms, when critics swoon over someone’s soiled bed – or half a sheep in a glass case filled with formaldehyde, the Haven debacle conjures up for us the image of the great and the good throwing money down the  drain.
But it seems that those same great and good never learn from their mistakes.
On Friday, Boston Borough Council's website chortled the announcement that a three-year arts project for Boston and South Holland has won a £2,592,183 grant from the Arts Council.
The bid for the money was made by the “South Holland and Boston Creative People and Places Arts Consortium” – no, don’t laugh, titter ye not - “to take art of all forms out to the community and into often isolated rural areas where access can be limited.”
Chief chortler was Boston Borough Council's portfolio holder for leisure services, Councillor Yvonne Gunter, who called it “a fantastic achievement …  a great chance to expand the arts and the range of opportunities … which … shows we already have a talented group with a real understanding of the arts to work alongside."
We’re surprised that Council Leader Peter Bedford wasn’t the person to be quoted as front of the house on this - a major grant for the area – as there is black hole in the cabinet list of portfolio holders … into which culture has disappeared almost without trace.
Councillor Gunter’s full title is portfolio holder for leisure services, parks and open spaces, country parks and reserves, playing fields, tree management, crematoria and cemeteries, allotments and grounds maintenance – which has an outdoorsy feel about it, but doesn’t conjure up the arts.
For all their faults, the Bypass Independents included some cerebral stuff  within their cabinet brief – with a portfolio for Community Cohesion and Cultural Services.
Oddly, the grant recipient of the Arts Council largesse is listed as “artsNK” - with other consortium members comprising South Lincs Community and Voluntary Service and the Lincolnshire Artists Forum.
The three-year programme, called Transported, will aim to take “art” to the villages and estates of South Lincolnshire and much further afield.  Equipment and training will be “transported to artists to inspire new, ambitious projects.”
There will be “consultation with local people, producing unique arts events and opportunities that will see the area developing a leading role in the arts regionally and nationally.”
The project will trade on our position at the centre of the food production and processing industries - especially the haulage industry, transporting art across Europe on the sides of lorries.
“Talks have already begun about large-scale photographic commissions on vehicles that criss-cross Europe, connecting our local work force with the places and cultures the lorries travel to,” we are told.
Transported will “develop inventive ways of getting people involved in the arts where they live, meet and work, providing inspirational experiences and empowering local people to take the lead in shaping their own arts provision.
“The innovative programme covers Boston and South Holland, bringing together partnerships of community groups, haulage companies, employers and artists to ensure that every village, estate and community has access to high quality arts.
“As part of the project, lorries and vans will be transformed into flexible artwork and arts spaces, touring to local festivals, schools, workplaces, towns and villages, providing opportunities for people to get involved with art on their doorstep.
Peter Knott, Director, Arts Council England, said: “Boston and South Holland are areas of low engagement with the arts … “
He’s spot on as far as that is concerned - but the rest of his quote that “this scheme is designed to address that issue” could well be deemed fanciful.
The only ray of hope in this is that now that the South Lincs Community and Voluntary Service has got its fingers in a new till, it might give Boston Borough Council ratepayers bit of a break.
SLVCS is a regular snout at the Boston Borough Council trough.
It receives a huge grant each year – but it is never enough.
Among other things, since January, it has hijacked £5,000 towards the Boston Community Showcase and a further £1,000 to celebrate volunteering week – by encouraging people to chalk on the pavement outside the Len Medlock centre.
Hopefully, now it has managed to have a say in the wasting of another three million pounds, it might feel satisfied for the time being.
Boston is desperately in neeed of real  financial support  - not the fanciful, nonsensical, time wasting tosh offered by the Arts Council which is sponged up by the South Lincs Community and Voluntary Service and its like.

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