Chancels and
Knaves
The legal services department spent £300 with a top national
firm of lawyers for advice on something called Chancel Repair Research.
Historically, Worst Street is the Lay Rector of St Botolph’s.
That’s an ancient title, and it makes the holder responsible
for the maintenance of the chancel of the church.
The one-time Boston
Corporation – now the borough council – acted as Lay Rector from the
grant of its charter in 1546.
These responsibilities carried endowments of land – but it
would appear that the Corporation disposed of them (like the dock and the
housing stock in Worst Street times, we suppose.)
The Chancel Repairs Act of 1932 confirmed the rights of
church authorities to require Lay Rectors to provide for maintenance and
transferred jurisdiction from ecclesiastical to lay courts, and a number of
cases over the years have confirmed that these rights remain in existence and
will be enforced.
Roughly every five years, Worst Street allocates around
£150,000 for repairs to the chancel.
Its current capital spending programme for 2014/15 to
2018/19 sets aside £28,000 a year for “restoration.”
Way back in 2009, as the Stump prepared to mark the anniversary of work starting on the building in 1309, the church asked
Boston Borough Council for a grant of
£12,000 to enhance its tourism work during that special year.
To try to smooth the way for this application, the church
withdrew an on-going appeal for £11,000 towards its insurance cover for that
year.
The council accepted this with open arms – and as far as we
know has not contributed to the insurance since.
But it then went on to turn down the application for the
tourism grant.
The insurance cover would assist in the event of unforeseen
problems in the chancel, but it appears that since then Worst Street has risked
a huge bill in the event of some mishap.
History shows us that the council would love to make a major
saving by ditching its responsibility to Boston Stump – and we wonder whether
this recent innocent-looking entry in its spending accounts indicate that new
moves are afoot to make this happen.
Perhaps someone can enlighten us?
***
Our piece last week about the Preposterous Boston Task and
Finish Group – which makes a sloth look like an Olympic sprinter – generated an
enlightening response from One Who Knows
…
“You are right about past Task and Finish groups,” we were
told. "The one looking at Boston BID relied on outside input as did the review
of the Social Impact of Population Change in Boston which also ensured that ‘dissenting
views’ were recorded so that nothing was lost.
“It is so important to hear all views and to make people
genuinely feel consulted.
“Boston has a great heritage and some passionate local
experts who understand that heritage.
“But the problem Boston has – like most of the UK – is linking itself into the development of
wider western culture, capitalism, industry and trade both at home and abroad.
“Boston has an enviable history, from the Romans
through to the Hanseatic League to the recorded history of the 16th and
17th century on to the 18th century with Flinders and
Bass, and then the second World War.
“There are local experts in all these areas.
“Britain, Boston and Lincolnshire can rightly claim to have
helped the world evolve and create democracy and trade on a truly global scale.
“The secret of success is getting the narrative right and
then developing the strategy as a town and borough.
“Looking at retail in an age of the internet is possibly a
bit Cnut-like.
“But getting people to come here to visit and move into our
town by making us a UK cultural hub is the secret.
“We have to create that narrative and then develop the
strategy and our local experts, businesses – and agencies like the Environment Agency
and Lincolnshire County Council have a big role here.
“We have to do this whilst retaining the historic and
environmental appearance of our borough rather than trying to build out of
Boston on farmland simply to stimulate short term economic advantage.
“Councillor Skinner's Task and Finish group is a good idea –
but it needs to have a vision beyond car parking, shops and toilets.
***
After every Lincolnshire County Council meeting, Clownty
Hall provides a recording of the live webcast so that we can enjoy it in
retrospect.
For many, it is doubtless a welcome cure for insomnia –
although others may consider it an invitation to self-termination.
Once upon a time, the impression was given that councillors
who wanted to question the executive did so by pressing a button to enter some
sort of lottery for selection – although this now seems to have been done away with.
But regardless of the system – even though there are scores
of councillors in the chamber – one who wins a place meeting after meeting is
the Independent Conservative Alison Austin.
At the meeting on 15th September she came up with
some tottering ramble about rail services to Lincoln and the inconvenience of
their scheduling, but the regularity of her appearances raises the question of
whether she receives some inexplicable preference in the queue – or if they indicate a lack of competition and interest within the
ranks of our other Boston county councillors who appear to see their role as
sitting on their hands and claiming the benefits.
Answers on a postcard, please.
***
Councillor Austin’s question – which included an appeal
for Clownty Hall to support a call for a
direct service between Skegness, Boston
and Lincoln during the current franchise consultations – receive the usual
dusty response.
But her question was timely coming as the Department for Transport is staging its East Midlands rail franchise
public consultation crisply named: Driving Growth in the East Midlands –
Connectivity as a Driver for Social and Economic Prosperity … but don’t
get too excited.
As is so often the case, the writing appears to be on the
wall as far as Boston is concerned.
You may need a magnifying glass, but while the cover of the
consultation document includes a map of services – among them Sleaford and
Skegness – you will be hard-pressed to locate Boston.
That’s because it doesn’t appear.
***
From time to time we have taken a look at the problem of
absenteeism among Boston Borough councillors – most notably within the ranks of
BTAC-ky, which now behaves as a town council for Boston.
It’s bad enough not to attend meetings – as so many member
do on a regular basis.
But the recently released minutes of the August meeting show that although just nine of the
fifteen members were present – only one … Alison Austin ... was
civil enough to send an apology.
This leaves five members who not only couldn’t be bothered
to represent the interests of the electors whose votes they sought so ardently but
didn’t have the decency to say sorry for their absence.
The running order on council papers lists those attending,
followed by the minutes of the previous meeting and then apologies for absence.
Could we suggest the inclusion of a fourth section?
Ignorant Sods –
accompanied by the names of those whose indifference shames the whole of Worst
Street.
***
Is it now the case that at long last the local holders of
the purse strings who give “free” grants (i.e. cash from us taxpayers or
national lottery entrants) are beginning to see the Emperor’s New Clothes aspect of some of the arty-farty ideas being
bounced around?
At the end of June, our favourite cultural freeloader Transported rattled its begging bowl at BTAC-ky for £5,000 towards the £24,000 it wanted to
celebrate in November the approaching 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim Fathers’ arrival in
America (in 2020) aboard the Mayflower – something that has nothing to do with Boston.
“Our hope is that
BTAC will join … as key delivery partners … to build the scale and ambition of
the Illuminate event, embed it and
its impacts in the cultural calendar of the town and ensure local ownership and
pride grows as our spectacular festival grows…”
Figures for the event looked thus:
As well as all that, Transported also put in a second
bid for Arts Council funding towards £8,000 for a “digital commission” to be
projected on to Boston Stump.
***
Transported sprang
into existence in 2012 with a mission to focus specifically “on parts of the
country where people’s involvement in the arts is statistically significantly
below the national average.”
It began with lottery funding, which has reduced over time
and now needs to source a level of outside funding.
As was to be expected, BTAC-ky simply nodded through the £5k
contribution – after all, if ever it runs short of cash it can simply turn on
the taxpayer tap by upping the council tax of those unlucky enough to live in
its catchment area.
As that stage it failed to notice that – as we pointed out
at the time – an amount that might have been as high as £32,000 was being
planned to fund a single event for a very short time. Not only that, but an event
that has little relevance to Boston … as many people know.
In these cash-strapped times, we are certain that a sum such
as this can be put to much better use.
***
But at least Boston Big Local showed a little more
common-sense and refused the request for £5,000 towards the project – which has
seen the entire house of cards come tumbling down.
We hope that it will be the thin end of a much needed wedge
to stop money being poured down the drain of frivolous and short-lived pieces
of entertainment.
***
After its huge investment in fancy off-road vehicles and a
squadron of drones to catch hare coursers, we thought it ironic that recent press and TV reports credited Norfolk rather than
Lincolnshire Police with being the pioneers.
But police and crime commissioner Marc Jones is not
intending to stand still – and is being quoted as saying that Lincolnshire
Police is aiming to be the "greenest" force in the country as it
trials electric cars.
The Nissan LEAF is currently on test as a community car
rather than a hot-pursuit vehicle.
Mr Jones is quoted as saying: “I’m ambitious for Lincolnshire Police
to become the ‘greenest’ most sustainable force in the UK …
“… I want to see the vehicles used by the force keeping pace
with operational requirements but also with changing technology to ensure
pollution and fuel use is kept to a minimum.”
From small beginnings the hare coursing squad rapidly
expanded to include a couple of £8,000 quad buggies and a fleet of fancy cars as well as two drones.
What will follow the non-pursuit Nissan, we wonder?
Are we perhaps just a short step away from a £100k Tesla
which covers 0-60 mph in just 4.8 seconds?
***
Certainly, the money seems to be there.
Currently the commissioner’s office is advertising for a Partnerships
and Delivery Manager paying up to £58,000, a Regional Collaboration Manager on
a pay ceiling of £43,000 and a Regional Performance Analyst on a top whack of
£30,000.
Three admin posts paying a total of £130,000.
With the average starting pay for a Lincolnshire policeman
at £25,000, this would fund five operational officers, who must surely be worth
more than three pen-pushers.
Yet despite all that, Lincolnshire Police managed to squeeze
a contribution of £850 towards the cost of establishing a mini police
project in twoBoston schools which is nothing more than a PR
stunt
Further details of grants such as this used to be freely
available, but can now only be obtained on request to the BTAC-ky Grant Administrator, such is the Worst Street transparency.
***
Not for the first time, Worst Street has not only failed to
take advantage of an opportunity offered to it, but kicked the gift horse in
the teeth along with the taxpayers as well.
For years, the free local magazine Simply Boston, which reaches 17,000 homes around the area, has
given the Boston Borough Council leader a free monthly column.
In the days of Peter Bedford it purportedly discussed “the
important topics in and around Boston.”
This was seldom the case – as the magazine was fobbed off
most of the time with a repeat of a column provided for the Boston sub-Standard –
often published some weeks earlier, without any editing to keep it in-date if
required.
In July, the first column under the new leadership saw
“Michael’s Notes” promising the same thing on a monthly basis – something that we said at the
time we doubted would happen … and which proved to be the case. After Councillor Cooper's first column, which repeated a piece written for the Worst Street website, we have since been offered “updates” from local councillors
“sharing” what was to happen over the following few months.
This promise was more or less delivered in the August
edition by town centre portfolio holder Paul Skinner but by September, the plot
was beginning to unravel.
“Martin’s Notes” saw housing portfolio holder Martin Griggs’
by-line over a piece that was little more than
a mission statement/propaganda puff on the Worst Street housing policy
and a summary of the progress of the council’s rogue landlords’ project since
2014.
The October issue is out at any time, and we doubt that
Worst Street will clamber out of the idle furrow that it has ploughed for
itself.
In a sense, this is a self-inflicted injury by Simply Boston – as it fills a
considerable amount of space each month with the dire hand-outs that the
council laughingly calls “news.”
But wouldn’t it be nice if they could put their heads
together and devise something informative, entertaining – and above all useful
and helpful for the people of Boston to read?
Don't hold your breath.
***
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