There has been much trumpeting this week about the naming of Boston’s Market Place as the best in England – but is the accolade really as important as is being made out? The borough council website reports that its leader Pete Bedford was “taken by surprise”when a picture of the Market Place was screened as the best scheme in England this year. He was then asked to stand and offer a few words, which we wish we had heard. As it happened the event was photographed, and as you can see from the picture below, was not exactly the best attended.

According to the organisation’s website, Heritage Champions are usually local councillors, who have been nominated by their authority to do the job. There are currently 264 local authorities with Heritage Champions– and as you can see from the photo barely more thirty turned out for the dog-hanging. So how many voted? And if the vote involved all members, why was Councillor Bedford “taken by surprise?” And wasn’t the choice of Boston Market Place a pretty obvious one for such recognition – surely it had to qualify simply on the grounds of cost, if nothing else. Interestingly the Heritage Champions website says that probably the most important thing local representatives can do is “tell people you are there” – which appears to have happened at last!.

At the event, Councillor Bedford stressed the return to a more traditional Market Place with a shared space in which vehicles did not automatically assume priority. Afterwards he was heard on the wireless commenting that “hopefully this will now put some of the recent doubters' minds at rest.” We think that it will take a lot more than that. Letters to the local papers continue to stress the danger to pedestrians in particular using the area. Boston Eye is also still receiving comments. One reader wrote succinctly: “Best in England... more like most dangerous in England!” Another told us: “My son, who lives in London, made a visit to Boston last week and on seeing the huge space and the ground surface in particular, referred to it as 'Lego Land'.”
Yet a third correspondent wrote to say: “In my opinion, the Market Place refurbishment was never any more than current councillors trying to put a stamp on their term of office, and maybe even be remembered for it. They will now! The Into Town bus does not go down well with either pedestrians, or the shop workers, and visitors I bring to see Boston think it's hilarious! How anyone could ever think that traffic and people eating outside was ever going to mix is beyond me; it’s not lanes of traffic, it’s random. If I wished to open a café in the Market Place, I would want my shop to be away from traffic, not in danger from it. It occurs to me at this point that the Assembly Rooms could have had money spent on them, the area in front would have been lovely for sitting outside, and inside would have been good for high class shops who really can't afford to have non shuttered windows? Also in London, there are old buildings that house several different catering places, but who all share the same outside space, it works, it gives choice.
Interestingly, Leader Bedford put his own spin on the Assembly Rooms at the aforementioned Heritage Champions’ meeting, when – according to the borough’s website – he included in his mention of a return to a more traditional Market Place “private investment in the area with the sale of the Assembly Rooms.” It seems a little early to be gilding the lily in this way. This was not private “investment.” It was the desperate flogging by the council of a key heritage site which has been so badly neglected by successive administrations that the cost of restoring it was beyond their reach, and whose sole option was to find a way to dump it on someone else – although this has not yet happened because of on-going delays. The last we heard was that the deal – which was a week overdue for completion today, is now unlikely to happen this week either.
A comment from Boston Independent group spokesman Councillor Richard Leggott on our Tuesday report on wheeling and dealing behind the scenesby former Councillor Brian Rush says: “Opposition members to the Boston Bypass Independents administration did not withdraw their attendance at committeesas your column would seem to be saying. To do so would have been a dereliction of our duty as councillors. What happened was this. After futile attempts by Councillor Richard Austin to tell opposition parties who would or would not be acceptable to the BBI Party as chairs and/or vice chairs – to the extent of naming members for chairs and vice chairs on committees to which they had not been appointed by their groups – we, the opposition, were handed a list of such positions asking for our nominations and tasked to 'fill in the blanks.' This we did – only to be told that some names were unacceptable to councillors Austin and Jordan with whom we met to discuss the issue. Opposition reaction was that we had been presented with a blank list to be filled in therefore non-acceptance of our nominations was just the same interference as before; 'all or none' were the terms. The answer was not ‘all’ – thus leading to opposition groups unanimously telling BBI ‘what they could do with their chairs.’ It would appear that the present administration is quite happy to repeat past mistakesin spite of an agreement to replace the departing chair of Environment and Performance scrutiny committee in accordance with keeping the political balance. A political balance dictated by Councillor Bedford, until now, as requiring scrutiny chairs to be opposition councillors.
We’ve often wondered whether Councillor Bedford has a sense of humour – and now we think we have detected one. After this week’s reported change of voting heart by Councillor Paul Mould – followingthe offer of a chairmanship next April – we took a look at the calendar. The start of that month is also Easter Monday – but while Councillor Mould is anticipating an Easter egg from his leader, we think it more likely that it will turn out to be an April Fool joke on a slow fuse! Time will tell.
It’s been a busy week for Boston Eye. with correspondence from readers concerning events of the past few days. Leader Pete Bedford’s explanation for the extension of the contract of the borough’s Cheap Executive – Councillor Bedford’s word, not ours – saw a local businessman of many years standing writing to say: “It has always worried me how our elected councillors have been so incompetent at appointing a suitable chief executive. The salary being paid at present for 15 days a month is nothing less than scandalous, this salary would, I believe attract a younger more vibrant candidate in a full time capacity.” Good point – but why would our mostly ageing blue rinse brigade want something as threatening as that?
Still on the Chief Executive’s contract extension, another reader sent us extracts from the minutes relating to the previous and “final”extension debated on 26^th September last year. These noted that the Chief Officer Employment Panel had taken into account the need to have continued strong management to oversee significant challenges facing the council and to take forward key projects. Extending Mr Harbord’s contract until 31 May 2013 “would also allow sufficient time for the “council to determine the best long term Chief Executive arrangement for the future.” The minutes noted: “Councillor Bedford stated that within six months (note – that would have been in March this year) the Chief Officer Employment Panel would start to consider options for the Chief Executive role going forward, but the council should be fully aware that it could no longer sustain a full-time Chief Executive.” Now, the same arguments have been repeated for yet another contract extension. What worries us is that no-one is saying what problems and key objectives between now and 2015 are so crucial that no-one other than Mr Harbord is capable of dealing with them. If there is something nasty in the woodshed – such as that seen by Aunt Ada Doom – then we should know about them.
It seems impossible to open a local newspaper these days without reading of the amazing Christmas celebrations being arranged to entertain us by the Boston Business “Improvement” District. Sadly, the BID seems to have got so enmeshed in all of this that there could be a risk that it is taking its eye off the ball in other matters. A meeting called earlier this week folded up because there were not enough directors to form a quorum, and there will not now be another meeting until the New Year. An earlier meeting was attended by quite a few people who are apparently not directors. This will be the final year in which the BID will be chipping in £10,000 of levy payers’ money towards the Christmas lights – unless of course it is re-elected for a further five year term. We also hear that issues have arisen regarding the twice-cancelled Boston Beat “free” pop music event that cost the levy payers a further £10,000 and have been passed to solicitors. And – as everything seem to come in threes … in this case of then tens of thousands of pounds … we hope the £10k town team award from the government won’t simply vanish into a growing black hole.
We were interested to note the reluctance of Boston’s senior police officer to reveal the number of extra officers “on the beat” for last week’s immigration protest. Is this because anyone who can count knows that any number above zero will constitute an “extra”presence?
And talking of the police – it was interesting to see how the voting for Lincolnshire’s first Police and Crime Commissioner bucked most of the predictions and trends. Polls had suggested that Labour was likely to be most successful overall. In Lincolnshire, the party came bottom of the poll, followed by the Conservative candidate. The final stage was interesting as well, with Independent latecomer Alan Hardwick topping the poll ahead of former Lincolnshire County Council Chief Executive and famous whistle-blower David Bowles. Mr Bowles started out as an independent, but later adopted the less than alluring slogan of “Campaign to Stop Politicians Running Policing” – which might have sounded a trifle outré for many Lincolnshire folk. Interestingly, former YTV Calendar newsman Hardwick was elected 35 years after former Calendar newsman Austin Mitchell was elected MP for Great Grimsby in 1977.
As the garden waste collections for this year come to an end, new figures show that Boston is still at the bottom of the Lincolnshire district council league table for household waste collection overall. It’s estimated that in this first season – which got off to a slow start – Boston's garden waste kerbside collection service collected around 2,500 tonnes to convert into compost. The latest figures show Boston’s collection rate at 33.1% - and the Borough Council’s estimate for the coming season is to improve this figure to 50% - which seems a shade ambitious.

We also wonder what happens to all this compost. We welcomed the brown bin collections – as – by the time they started, we were running three compost bins, and had more of the sludgy brown stuff than we could ever need. And that was before the Tories took over the running of the council!

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