As the town lurches into Christmas celebration mode, a seasonal opportunity for Boston Borough Council to redeem some of its wastefulness comes in the form of an appeal at tonight’s Boston Town Area Committee.

Independent Councillor Carol Taylor – a member of the committee – has registered an appeal for a contribution towards illuminating St Botolph’s church … bka  (better known as)  the Stump.
For a number of years, the Stump was lit after dark by sponsorship from local business but – as with all these things –a time came when it was no longer affordable.
It has been very sad in recent years to look across the town at night and realise that there is no sign of the Stump.
It is such a major part of the life of the town – and yet it is sadly becoming increasingly ignored.
As Councillor Taylor points out in her submission to BTAC: “It has been a life-saving beacon down the centuries – both spiritually and literally, to the religious and secular. “It has guided to safety those in peril on the sea and in the air – Second World War pilots limping back from action took a sighting of the Stump as an indication that they were safe and almost home.
“We are all proud of it, and rightly so. We should want all to see and admire it. No one coming to Boston should return home without having at least noticed the Stump.
“But … come after dark, which, let’s face it, is mid-afternoon in the mid-winter, and it may as well not be there.
“Scan the skyline after the sun has set and you may well miss it altogether.”
It costs £3,000 for the Stump to be floodlit at night for an entire year.
Unfortunately the church is now lit on just a handful of occasions.
Individuals can pay £25 to dedicate a single night’s illumination, which is accompanied by a notice in the porch to explain the reason to visitors.
We have done this on a few occasions, and the pleasure that it brings cannot be quantified.
At present, donations to light the church in this way provide a meagre £400 – representing about 16 days a year.
Councillor Taylor’s application goes on: “I am asking that BTAC, as the parish council of Boston, demonstrates its pride in, and love for, the Stump by granting £1,500 so that it can be a blazing glory for all to see at times of most popularity and footfall – during the most important religious festival periods such as Easter and Christmas.
“I know you have plenty of other very worthwhile calls for contribution, but I consider this to be one of the most important you could make and one of the most demonstrative of your support for Boston.”
We’re not sure about the “worthwhileness” of some previous calls on BTAC’s coffers.
They have included funding the feeble Jubilee celebration in the town’s Central Park to the tune of £5,000, and paying at least £1,000 for the vandal-prone Jubilee Fountain.
Interestingly, both of these projects benefitted the wider Boston public rather than the town – which were therefore beyond the BTAC remit, and should therefore have been funded from the borough’s budget.
BTAC also found it in their hearts to give £1,000 to the leechlike South Lincolnshire Community Voluntary Service to buy chalks for people to scrawl on the pavements to celebrate volunteering week  … on top of the £5,000 the SLCVS had already received to “celebrate volunteering” during the Jubilee.
Unfortunately, we know that Councillor Taylor is not currently the flavour of the month with some council colleagues – who see her challenges to the bureaucracy as rocking the boat … which is something to be regarded as intolerable and punishable.
However, the facts remain that in recent years Boston Borough Council has roughed up the parish church for nothing more than selfish, financial interests – and the time to put things right is long overdue.
Just for once, a gesture involving a small sum in overall terms could well reap benefits that might improve the council’s tattered image.
Well, they do say that Christmas is a time for miracles!

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