If assets had been

kept, might things

have been different?

  

Tomorrow,  Boston Borough Council’s cabinet of curiosities will be approving a council tax increase of 2.9% – nine pence  a week more for an average band D property … and 30% more than the originally announced 1.98%.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that this means some improvements around the place at long last. The charge will simply be used to alleviate the cuts that Worst Street has to make.

In his report to the rest on the Insignificant Seven, finance portfolio holder Aaron “Frank” Spencer hasn’t minced his words about the looming night of the long knives.

“Let’s be clear – there is no place to hide. Tough decisions will have to be made about the services this council provides going forward. This council can no longer afford to fund all it once could. Residents will see a change to what this council does and how it provides its services.”

In other words – this time around expect to pay more for less rather than the same for less, which we have done for the past few years … excluding the PRSA and Moulder Centre, of course, which have had hundreds of thousands thrown at them.

And after this year’s cuts, expect to be prescribed the mixture as before until 2020 as Worst Street struggles to save a total of £2 million.

This put us in a ruminative state of mind as – during our reporting of the million pound loan fiasco – we saw a copy of Boston Borough Council’s budget from a quarter of a century ago.

It tells a sorry tale of what might have been had the borough not systematically sold off the family silver.

In March 1992, he council had a handsome list of assets then valued at more than £2 million – almost twice that at today's prices.

But those were the good old days.

Two years earlier it had sold the municipally owned docks for £4 million to a company which turned the business around and sold it in 1999 for £8 million.

But there were still assets galore.

In 1992, Worst Street owned 5,385 council houses.

But seven years later, Boston Mayflower was formed when the council transferred more than 4,800 homes to it – presumably the other 500 disappeared along the way.

As a charity, Mayflower doesn’t make a profit, but reinvests any annual surplus – and if the houses were still a council asset, they would be making a fortune.

Worst Street owned two swimming pools, one of which was presumably sold to a developer.

There were 37 shops and industrial units on the asset list.

The council now appears to own just two shops – and they are under review for possible sale.

And of course in those days, the council owned the Assembly Rooms – which it allowed to fall into disrepair before selling it off and losing an income of almost £60,000 a year in the process.

Whatever’s left may soon be for the chop as well. An update to the council’s asset strategy last December said: “Over the next three years we will review all of our community asset holdings and assess the long term options for their use. This will include consideration of community asset transfer together with looking at alternative uses that may better meet our corporate objectives.”

Over 25 years, the council has squandered millions of pounds worth of assets, and we wonder what it will do when there’s nothing left to sell.

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