Figures for anti-social behaviour being presented at tomorrow’s meeting of the Boston Town Area Committee make interesting reading.
They show that the total number of reported incidents dealt with by the Community Safety Department at Boston Borough Council between November 2011 and November last year was 131.
Of this figure, neighbourhood disputes – which totalled 31 – headed the list of the top five categories, with a total of 48 incidents accounting for the rest.
These all appeared to be related, covering as they do misuse of public areas, drunken behaviour, rowdy behaviour and street drinking.
A bigger picture – of incidents reported to Lincolnshire Police between April and October last year – reflects a similar pattern.
Drunken behaviour, street drinking and shouting and swearing between them accounted for 370 of a total of 1,921 incidents.
Bad as the figures are, they actually represent an improvement, with a drop in offences reported to the police of 356, or just over 11%.
However, the fall doesn’t look so good when compared with the other local authority areas of Lincolnshire, with Boston ranked sixth out of seven – well behind the table leader West Lindsey, where crime for the six month period fell by more than 20%.
Boston’s tendency to find trouble in a bottle continues despite numerous promises of a “clampdown” on such behaviour – although public concern remains as high as ever it was.
Something that worries us amidst all of this is the path being taken by the new owner of Boston’s Assembly Rooms, Matthew Clark.
Whilst the pussyfooting around the use of the words night club continues, there is no doubt that this will form a core use of the premises.
Mr Clark declared:  “Entertainment is our catalyst and we want to put on some big acts here that bring out everyone from 18 to 40, 50, and 60 years old that can enjoy it.”
Asked whether the place would be run as a bar every night of the week,  he continued:
“The final plans aren’t there yet. It’s anticipated that, yes, it will remain pretty much as it is in forms of operation, but there will be a licensed area there will be an area for dancing and there will be a stage  – so we don’t see any radical changes to the building that it was actually constructed for.
“Again, it’s just that people are scared of the word night club I suppose …”
Having said that,   he also announced that between thirty and fifty people would be needed to staff the operation.
Since then, things have moved on.
At the end of last month, Mr Clark announced that he had bought the Waterfront pub, to "complement” the Assembly Rooms, and added: “I am on the lookout. There are at least two other properties I have got my eye on in Boston.”
More worryingly, he was quoted as saying: “It’s really important to us that we got a separate venue to make sure people can have a whole night out of entertainment. “Everyone wants to pub crawl, and we want to make sure we have quality venues for them to visit.”
A quick count turned up at least 25 pubs in the immediate town centre area plus a couple of nightclubs.
Given the problems that Boston experiences with alcohol, we have to ask whether we really want a local entrepreneur going to the trouble to organise a pub crawl, and would question whether it is truly what “everyone wants.”
It’s rather disappointing to realise that the “economic boost” promised for Boston will apparently take the form of parting fools from their money by turning them into drunken fools.
At the time the Assembly Rooms sale was announced, Council Leader Pete Bedford was fulsome in his praise for Matthew Clark.
“The great thing about it is the fact that he is a local chap, I mean he was born in Kirton just down the road from Boston.”
The Leader emphasised the problems of absentee landlords, and added: “How do you then control things? We’ve got somebody now who we are confident will deliver something for Boston.”
We doubt that our so-called leadership will try to control anything to do with the Assembly Rooms, and however many other pubs may be enjoined in this hokey cokey binge-up.
But we hope that if there are planning conditions that can be enforced, or police recommendations that must be adhered to, then the powers that be will do their best to protect the town from the predations of even more drunks on our  streets.
 

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