Any moment now, we are due to be treated to some mind boggling facts and figures about how well this year’s Big Boston Clean-up has done – and how many tons of litter have been collected by the teams of volunteers who have lent a hand.
Elsewhere in the town areas that have gone neglected for years are being given a frenzied cleaning in the hope that we might lure the judges of Britain in Bloom to hand us another trinket – though what good it will be is anyone’s guess.
And of course Operation Fly Swat rumbles on in the background – using forced labour from North Sea Camp Open Prison to clear our dykes and ditches.
As we have said before, litter and mess have become something of an obsession with Boston Borough Council of late – and recently several of the borough’s committees have received an update on Boston’s street cleaning services.
The most obvious thing about them is that they are under resourced – with just eight operational staff roaring around with three mechanical road sweepers, a couple of machines to clean the shopping precincts  – and a number of support vehicles.
This squad has the job of collecting litter from county and borough owned council areas including the highway, footways, footpaths, car parks and around 450 litter bins throughout the borough.
But with so few people tackling the problem for so many days, it’s impossible to stay on top of the problem
Whilst Boston’s town centre is cleaned 362 days a year, the borough’s other roads and footways are treated at a minimum of once each quarter – so is it any wonder that the town always seems to be in a mess?
A recent poll of services highlighted a number of specific areas of concern – which will be familiar to the people who live there or use them regularly.
Areas such a High Street and London Road, Main Ridge, and Willoughby Road stand out on the list – and further afield, almost half the parish councils in the borough names areas that needed extra attention.
A number of volunteers lend a hand in many areas of the town and in the parishes and since the Placecheck groups came into being, a major job for many of them has involved collecting litter.
Now we are told that “efforts are being made to expand this philosophy across the parishes.”
We have long criticised Placecheck – but at least until now, it has directed its efforts at more than merely clearing away litter … which sounds as though it will not be the case if the scheme is extended.
There is also the matter of cost – which is disproportionate to the tasks being achieved.
Each of the original Placecheck areas received £20,000 for their project – but half of this money was immediately clawed back in administration costs.
Given that litter removal in some shape or form then tended to dominate each scheme, this turned out to be a very expensive way to keep Boston tidy.
We are also told that a number of “Litter Champions” have come forward to provide street cleaning in their local areas.
“Both initiatives show that many residents are  prepared to add their weight to the fight to increase local responsibility, but even with these volunteers … some respondents remain critical of our joint ability to contain litter effectively across the entire borough.”
Whilst we admire the phraseology, we do not think that locals pick up litter “to add their weight to the fight to increase local responsibility.”
They pick up litter because Boston Borough Council is failing in its statutory responsibility to clear it, and their roads and pavements would disappear beneath mountains of rubbish if they didn’t bail the council out.
Not only that, but we suspect that many of these “volunteers” do not realise that as they are not employees or directly supervised by council staff,  they are not protected by the council’s blanket insurance policy cover. Woe betide them if they are cut or injured or otherwise made ill in their public spiritedness.
And although the council is trying to play down the risks, we all know how willingly insurance companies try to duck responsibility in the event of a claim.
Whilst the council acknowledges that street cleaning remains an emotive issue – it is unwilling to come up with the obvious solution … to stop footling about by dumping responsibility on its taxpayers via costly and financially wasteful schemes, and instead investing money in more staff and better equipment to do the job that we pay them for.

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