As Russia flexes its might against the West, a Cold War of a much lower magnitude seems to have broken out in Boston.
It follows a visit to the town by no lesser a dignitary than the Latvian Ambassador to the UK, Andris Teikmanis, in response to an invitation by the Boston Community Forum – a vague group which has done little to make its presence felt despite the obvious need for such an organisation.
The invitation to the Ambassador annoyed quite a number of Boston borough councillors for the quite obvious reason that scarcely any of them were aware of it.
It was a Saturday affair apparently instigated by the Forum Chairman Robert Lauberts “an active community volunteer” with a finger in more local pies than he has fingers, and another member of the group
As part of a busy day in the town, the arrangements included a meeting between the Ambassador and members of the Social Impact of Population Change in Boston Task and Finish Group, “group leaders” (except for one) and a senior council officer to boot.
However, when challenged about why so few councillors were involved, Chief Executive Richard Harbord, fell back on his “nuthin’ to do with me, or with the council, guv” defence that has proved so convenient recently – claiming an absence of any formal contact, leaving him out of the loop entirely.
This argument still failed to cut much ice in some quarters – especially since the meeting was held at the Worst Street offices
We have to say that we are sympathetic to the way councillors appear to have been roughed up – and the apparent lack of concern that any Tom, Dick or Harry with vague claims to “community” credentials can snap his fingers and summon senior political figures to a meeting at which he chooses the attendees.
It’s a serious case of the tail wagging the dog – and one that requires closer investigation and a less dismissive approach to the relevant concerns of elected members

 

***

Boston hit the headlines in the Daily Mail again last week – which invariably means that the story will not be a good one.

The headline reported: “Library forced to employ SECURITY GUARDS to prevent visitors viewing pornography on its computers.”
And the story drooled on: “A library has been forced to employ security guards to clamp down on visitors constantly watching porn on its public computers.
“Members of the public are regularly flocking to Boston Library, Lincolnshire, to take advantage of the free internet facilities.
“However, library users have reported seeing middle-aged men sitting at the desktop computers shamelessly gawping at X-rated videos.”
Granted, the Mail account seemed to be more triple X-rated than our local “newspaper” reports, but it nonetheless begs the question of why Lincolnshire County Council is doing nothing to prevent such prurient activity in our halls of learning. County Hall’s head of libraries – what few that remain of them – said: “We have software in place to help stop people downloading inappropriate material, which works on both English and foreign language sites.
“Anyone misusing our computers will be asked to leave the library, and repeat offenders will be banned.
“If we suspect illegal material has been downloaded, we will report the matter to the police.”
Surely this is too little, too late.
Local authorities elsewhere in the country can render it well-nigh impossible for library users to access this sort of material.
But in easy-going Boston, it seems to be a case of three or four strikes before you’re out.

***

The inexorable move away from the concept of a district council being responsible for err – a particular district – has taken another step forward … yet again, helped by Boston Borough Council.

Last month we heard that Boston had formed a partnership with East Lindsey District Council in a move which is expected to result in unspecified but “substantial” savings when Boston's binmen collect household waste from some residents over the East Lindsey border.
This follows an earlier decision by the two authorities to share a statutory post – again to save money.
Now, Boston Borough Council is taking control of South Holland’s closed circuit television scheme.
Aside from the obvious opportunity this presents for the Big Brothers of Worst Street to slather the streets of Spalding, Holbeach, Crowland, Long Sutton and Sutton Bridge with posters aimed at making ordinary citizens feel like criminals as well as scaring them half to death, is anyone prepared to speculate how soon it will be before the powers that be decide first to merge districts into larger, more cost efficient groupings before ultimately devolving the entire district tier of local government to county level?

***

It’s everyone’s favourite time of year when their council tax demands drop through the letterbox – and this year they’re accompanied by multi-lingual “DIY guide to help keep floodwater at bay.”
It includes some useful ideas to use binbags filled with soil or sand to stop water backing up through ground floor toilets and sinks – but some less clever suggestions such as taping up air bricks, which is fine at a time of flood but could also, if misunderstood, result in stopping essential ventilation to rooms containing gas fires and the like.
Nevertheless, extra information is always useful – but this year sees the disappearance of some as well.
Until now, our annual tax demand has been accompanied by a handy booklet in which Lincolnshire County Council, Boston Borough Council and Lincolnshire Police offered some sort of cursory accounting of the way they have parted with our hard earned pounds.
Whilst nine out of every ten of these probably travel straight from the letterbox to the recycling bin, there are still enough people – some of whom have written to Boston Eye to tell us – who resent the fact that the powers that be no longer feel a duty to tell us in simple terms what they are doing with our money.
It seems that so long as we pay up, that’s the most we can expect.

***

Speaking of flooding … although the Boston deluge receded long ago, Boston Borough Council seems reluctant to drop the event from its webpages and local version of Pravda.
At its peak, council leader Pete Bedford spoke of the “devastation” caused by the floods in which “the lives of many people, including business owners, have been turned upside down.  Talking to those affected you can see the heartache in their eyes – personal belongings ruined; their homes and businesses destroyed.”
We were struck by a certain irony in these quotes when we noted Councillor Bedford’s earlier comments in one of his many local “newspaper” comment columns. In August last year  he used his monthly propaganda facility  “to urge all home owners to shop around for their flood insurance now that the landscape has changed, due, in part, to representations made by Boston Borough Council,” going on to chortle about how much money he had saved on his house insurance cover,
Given that last December’s floods in and around the town far surpassed even the events of 1953, we wonder whether the landscape has changed yet again – and if Councillor Bedford might be regretting his over-confidence.

***

Some news is better late than never – not least the information that Boston Borough Council’s garden waste collections resumed at the start of this week. However, despite all the gung-ho waffle about what a difference a few sunny days make to the way our gardens grow, we suspect that some people would have welcomed slightly more by way of lead time to start filling their bins. We hope the assurance that brown bin collections will follow the same routes and days as last year means exactly that – because we seem to recall problems arising pretty much every year since the service started which left some people less than happy.
But as we scoured the borough’s website to ensure that this will be the case, we were left wondering.  A section about recycling told us that – among several methods – extra supplies of blue collection bags are available by visiting the council depot at Fen Road.
Would this be the same Fen Road depot where staff were left “dewy eyed” and cliché ridden by the “end of an era” as the final load of waste for recycling left the site last September?
It surely would.

***

Finally, we reported the absence of any police enthusiasm a few weeks ago after a break in which caused a lot of damage and distress. Since then we have heard of at least two more such offences nearby. In every case, the police came, and went – and that was that as far as they were concerned. However, we note in one of our local “newspapers” that –  after reports of daffodils planted by volunteers being picked by local people who probably think that there’s nothing wrong in what they are doing – the police have issued a warning that they will take the matter “seriously.”
Anyone taking daffodils could be arrested for anti-social behaviour or theft.
A spokesman said – whilst presumably keeping a straight face: “Picking flowers may be viewed as an anti-social behaviour offence, and if a person digs up a bulb and sells it for profit, they may have committed a theft so we would warn anyone considering such action that we do take such incidents seriously and would deal with any offenders under the appropriate legislation.”
Remind us to keep a bunch or two of daffs in our garage from now on.

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Our former blog is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com