We’ve often asked what Boston Business “Improvement” District is doing to justify its existence – and the question emerges again  with the news that its counterpart in Lincoln – the Business Improvement Group – has won an £18,000 grant to tackle street drinking, noise nuisance, and related anti-social behaviour in the city centre. The money is from the Baroness Newlove Alcohol Fund,  which runs a £1m pound  project to help communities across England tackle alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour. To date, twenty communities have been supported by the fund to develop their innovative ideas to make a real difference – and by all accounts there is plenty of money still available. Why is it that Lincoln BIG can track down grant sources such as these, while Boston BID has barely raised a penny in matched funding since it began almost four years ago? Could competence have something to do with it?
The confusion over the sale of Boston’s Assembly Rooms is not getting any clearer.   We hear that one tenant of a shop beneath the facility has had to pay November's rent to Boston Borough Council and not to the new landlord as agreed.  Meanwhile another tenant has cancelled the direct debit until the council explains what is going on. The latest news is that the sale should take another three weeks to complete.
Another sale being suggested according to the rumour mill is that of Boston Borough Council’s aging and decrepit refuse collection fleet.   Each month, the borough’s list of spending lists repairs to keep this particular show on the road – and over time the cost must have run into thousands. Now we hear that one of our Tory leaders is keen to sell the old rubbish lorries to India.  An insider fumes: “What a bloody insult to this country if true. These lorries have been past their sell by date for many years and are positively dangerous. Wouldn't the scrap metal value be better? Surely, surely this cannot be a serious suggestion.”
Hopefully, the brouhaha over Boston’s Central Park Jubilee Fountain has run its course, and now that Boston Borough Council has fixed it with compound SBR – “a styrene butadiene latex admixture for cement systems which is added to mortar and acts as a reinforcing structure … whilst also waterproofing and increasing durability” – it will no longer be possible for a couple of nine-year-olds to be villified as vandals after they climbed on it and damaged it before this superglue had “gone off.” Hopefully, there is a lesson in semantics to be learned here.  The police decided that this incident should not be classed as criminal damage as there was no suggestion that it was malicious – and in any case the culprits were below the age of criminal responsibility. We suspect that the same is true of the earlier incident involving a couple of 13 year-old girls. The temptation to shoot from the lip and call people vandals when they are not should be avoided – as should the automatic and clichéd addition of “mindless” ahead of the noun.
But again, the episode was enough for Boston to make the bad news headlines on the BBC’s Look North – despite our warnings about playing into the hands of the media over next week’s Boston immigration protest. In a programme that also highlighted last Sunday morning’s siren debacle, Parks and Cemeteries supremo Councillor Yvonne Gunter took to our TV screens to discuss the latest damage – and in doing so incurred the wrath of a fellow councillor and joint member of the Boston Town Area Committee – Independent Carol Taylor. In an e-mail to all councillors, she said: “I watched in sheer amazement your interview … to say ‘I was going to put it somewhere else but I ‘had second thoughts’ … is not true!  At the BTAC meeting on 6^th September … WE, as in BTAC committee, had a vote. Seven voted for it to be put back in the park and four were against. You, Councillor Gunter, were one of those who voted against. We are all aware of your dedication and commitment to ‘The Camera' –  but in this instance, to go on television and blatantly lie, is unacceptable for a portfolio holder and member of the Cabinet. Why didn't you say that it was a democratic decision?”
Now that the fountain affair is hopefully over, we just have a couple of postscripts to the debate. One came from Boston Eye reader, Emily, who said:  “Why not have it made in cast iron.  It would then not be possible either to break it or remove it and would remain lovely for years.”   And we also note that in the absence of the fountain, the commemorative plaque that caused so much acrimonious debate  (see our picture on the right) has also vanished. Will it return alongside the fountain, we wonder? If so, perhaps it could be edited along the way.
The earlier-mentioned siren affair prompted a suggestion from a regular reader, who e-mailed to say: “How about a 'tongue in cheek' prize for the most effective 'authority' backed way of depriving us Boston residents of sleep? I thought the unexplained 'training' mission that involved a Chinook helicopter taking off from a residential area in the early hours of the morning earlier this year was hard to beat but I think the 'decommissioned' flood siren that started at about 3am and played until about 8am may be the best one so far this year. Recognising it as a flood siren I called the local number for Boston police station in the early hours, just in case I did need to take my loved ones to high ground. The nice lady who I spoke to explained that they had received quite a few phone calls and they thought the siren was located on top of the Pilgrim Hospital but they weren’t sure, but it was nothing to worry about.” Whilst that is not very comforting, what made matters worse was the attempt by Boston Borough Council to claim some sort of credit in the matter. The council’s website boasted that councillors and staff were involved in getting the siren silenced. “At least two borough councillors and four members of staff were alerted and made efforts to facilitate access to the water tower in Horncastle Road so that the siren could be switched off. The tower is now in private ownership and the owner, who doesn't live at the tower but lives in Boston, was located so access could be gained to turn the rooftop siren off.”  What no-one has told us is why did it take so long? The owner must surely pay some sort of rates on the property – either private or business – so it should not have taken four hours to track him or her down
Yesterday’s item about the dangers in Boston’s Market Place has revived the debate about the number of traders attending the market. A reader wrote to say: “ I think the picture of the Market Place shows what many people have been saying ever since the refurbishment was finished - that there are not as many stalls there as there used to be, despite what the council says! I noticed several large spaces for stalls on Wednesday when walking through, and have been told that sometimes on market days if traders don't turn up their stalls are taken away so that it appears they ALL are filled up.” Our sharp-eyed reader also commented: “Incidentally, did you notice in the latest Borough Bulletin that the picture on the front page showed lines of traffic parked wrongly in the Market Place? Apparently it was taken on a Wednesday when cars aren't supposed to park there!!”  Well spotted, reader. Looking at the photo in more detail shows that it was clearly not taken on a Market Day, as there isn't a stall in sight. But why would the borough want to mislead us?
We note that our local MP Mark Simmonds continues to grapple with the big issues since his elevation to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office a couple of months ago. Whilst Boston battles the problems caused by the Market Place refurbishment, street drinking, and falling fountains, Mr Simmonds was assuring MPs that no-one working for the FCO will be involved in an independent assessment commissioned by the Cayman Turtle Farm into allegations of inhumane turtle husbandry at the farm. In case you were worried, responsibility for the Cayman Turtle Farm rests with the Cayman Islands Government. That’s all right then.
As if business isn’t bad enough for the town’s beleaguered shopkeepers, Boston Borough Council is now applying its heavy hand to “encourage” business owners not waste money on steel security shutters for their premises if they haven’t applied for planning permission. This apparently follows a series of complaints  over the appearance of new shutters overnight.  Councillor Derek Richmond, portfolio holder for the town centre – and  famous in  local legend for his insensitive approach towards the disabled over blue badge parking, and his menacing noises about parking in the Market Place generally – is quoted as saying: "The council does understand that shopkeepers might be worried about how they secure their stock, so officers are on hand to advise on the numerous types of measures that could be available – some without needing planning permission. We don't want the town centre to begin to look as if it is closed for business -  it needs to remain attractive, encouraging and safe at all times of the day and night." We assume that Councillor Richmond has visited his town centre fiefdom  recently.  If that has been the case, he might have noticed the increasing numbers of empty shops, which combined with the general chaos in the Market Place and the disgraceful invasion by the Into Town buses does more to make the town look closed to business and unwelcoming to shoppers than any number of steel security shutters.
Our attempt to subscribe to the Boston Standard  to avoid its disgraceful price rise has now entered a third week. Despite registering our bank account details to create a direct debit, we were told to repeat the procedure – but having handed over confidential information once, we were reluctant to do so again. Two e-mails – each a week apart – have since promised urgent action, which has not materialised. The latest communication is to say that no investigation can proceed until we supply a postal address. That was done at the time of the initial complaint – and so it seems that this information has also been lost. Should it really be necessary to waste so much time and effort to buy something from  people who seem so reluctant to sell it?
Finally for this week – a photograph that caught our eye and made us smile. It appears on one of the websites of Boston North West’s Lincolnshire County  Councillor, Andrea Jenkyns  –  and shows her at work for a charity that is close to her heart.
What tickled us was the dog apparently sitting in a bucket labelled “collection for Doris Banham dog charity.”  Most people find it easier to collect money –   rather than dogs!

 

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