Bin … and gone –

councils slapped

down over new laws

Three months ago, Boston Borough council's website exulted  that it had become a mentor to other local authorities wanting to copy its aggressive stance and criminalisation of taxpayers who disobeyed the council’s bidding.

Regular readers will recall that  a Worst Street local law required anyone out walking their dog to produce a poo bag on demand  ... or face a heavy fine.

They were also especially proud of another law to  fine motorists up to £2,500 if they impeded the path of one of the bin collection lorries – even if they were  parked quite legally.

“Councils in other parts of the country besieged by some of the same problems being tackled here have asked for advice from Boston Borough Council,” WorstWeb trilled

“A number have asked about the borough council's use of new legislation to encourage more to clean up after their dogs … (and) … “inconsiderately parked vehicles which block the route needed to be taken by bin lorries seems to be another problem shared.

“A district council in Wales and three others, including one of the London councils and a large metropolitan council, have asked the borough council for information on how it is tackling persistent offenders using anti-social behaviour legislation. It has asked to follow the borough council's progress on this one with a possible view to copying ...”

But these municipal mimics reckoned without  the Daily Mail – which in the past week highlighted extreme cases of  legal abuses, and claims to have prompted Local Government Minister Marcus Jones to order them to wind their necks in.

In one case, Worst Street’s demand for dog walkers to carry a poo bag was further embellished – with a requirement for not just one bag … but two.

We wonder how pleased the councils who asked Boston for its secret of “success” feel now that these heavy-handed antics have been exposed as the bully-boy tactics they really are.

It is a fitting payback for a council that puts oppression and posturing before punters to get its own way. 

***

Our on-going debate about the poor attendance record of some Boston borough councillors has been joined by Mike Gilbert – a former Tory councillor and cabinet member who has now formed his own political party A Blue Revolution. 

In an e-mail he says: “This has got worse since the party system has had to promote people with limited scope to participate in local democracy.

“UKIP clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel in all too many cases. 

“The other main party on Boston Borough Council – the Tories – have some young talent but all too often there are competing demands, and unfortunately the borough loses out.

“Less politically significant but still shameful is the number of councillors to miss civic events, including Mayoral events. 

“It seems to have got worse since the last borough election as stalwarts of such events have left the scene … councillors like Mary Wright, Yvonne Gunter, Richard Leggott, Carol Taylor, Paul Kenny, Paul Goodale, and James Knowles.

“The people of the borough who turn out for events like Remembrance Sunday, the Coningsby freedom parade and the Mayor's Sunday and Civic Carol service expect to see the people they have voted for representing their ward at these  town events.

“I think it diminishes democracy when councillors take the money and well, just take the money.”

***

The more common expression is “take the money and run” – and this really is the bottom line in many cases.

Once upon a time, the argument was made that councillors’ allowances were too low to attract candidates of quality or to encourage more young people to consider involvement in local politics – but this is no longer really the case.

Whilst better benefits have attracted a handful of younger members it is undeniable that the lion’s share of Worst Street membership comprises upper middle aged and retired people with time on their hands that can be turned into hard cash.

***

Basic allowances at Worst Street are £4,400 a year – yet the most recent figures for 2016-2017 show that just half of those listed  received  this lowest payment.

Cabinet members receive an extra £3,361 and the remainder of the non-basic squad received “special responsibility” allowances in varying amounts – plus travel expenses where incurred.

This saw an average across the members of the last council of £5,600 – whilst only seven received the bare minimum.

Where councillors held cabinet jobs they received £7,750 a year – around £650 a month.

***

Then of course, there is the matter of Lincolnshire County Council – where four of our five representatives wear two hats and represent Worst Street as well.

The basic allowance for all five is £10,425, and three of the remainder hold committee roles that attract special responsibility payments of £9,830, £4,170 and £3,130 respectively.

At the top end of these rates, we see one councillor “earning” almost £20,000 a year from Clownty Hall, plus £7,750 a year from Worst Street … all of which is paid before expenses.

***

It seems hard to imagine that these monies are “earned” in what most of us would consider to be the definition of the word.

And we are sorry so see so little evidence of what councillors do at the sharp end to represent the people they claim to be so anxious to serve … but  at election time only.

We believe that one or two of them keep their electors informed via a newsletter.

But ss far as we can discover, none of them communicates via social media – Twitter, Facebook or Blogger – nor do they hold “surgeries” where their constituents can drop in to raise local concerns.

The most common reason given is that voters “know where to find me…”

But some members do not make themselves as accessible as they ought –  using the council switchboard as a point of contact rather than a landline or mobile number – and we doubt that those who seldom attend meetings are greatly troubled if they never hear from their punters between elections.

***

Former councillor Mike Gilbert was not the only one with a view on absenteeism – we have heard again from Carol Taylor, who these days sends her welcome thoughts about Boston Borough Council  from Cornwall …

“I would like to add my comments about councillor absenteeism,” she e-mails. “There's nothing you can do about it. It is up to the individual to remember their commitment at election time.

“During my time as councillor, there were two who only attended the obligatory one meeting every six months. They didn't do anything for their community but still claimed their £300 plus per month.

“There is also the issue of councillors not living in their wards – and there is nothing you can do about this either.

“Councillors who have moved out of their elected wards can't possibly know what is happening in their ward and can't attend local meetings.

“These councillors have no morals – but until the constitution is changed will continue to take money from the public purse without batting an eyelid!

“As for working in their community – how can they if they don't live there?”

***

An occasional browse of the Worst Street spending figures never fails to be of interest.

In the most recent batch – with always emerges with what seems to be extreme reluctance – we noticed one particular big spend that caught our eye …

We wonder why this £46,000 bill is being paid from our hard-earned council tax.

One suggestion is that it might be due a whoops! where one of the borough’s great white elephants is involved, and that we are meeting the bill for another organisation.

Answers on a postcard, please.

***

The spending list also includes gas and power bills for the PRSA and the Moulder Leisure Centre for June of £4,700 and £3,500 respectively.

These seem little changed from the days before hundreds of thousands were spent on biomass boilers and the woodchip to fuel them.

This seems to us the sort of thing that should be subject to a bit of scruting by the appropriate committee, as on the face of it a fortune appears to have been spent to no real purpose.

***

It may only be peanuts in spending terms, but another figure for July was £400 to a company that we assume provided “beach-related arts and craft materials” for the Central Park cat lavvy.

This is despite Worst Street’s “Big thanks again to Boston Big Local for funding the event with support from Mayflower Housing, Boston Children's Centre, Transported Arts and Boston United in the Community.”

Last year, when the council again had no similar spending commitment, it splashed out £5,150 for the “construction of beach in park” plus £700 to hire four donkeys for two days and £500 for a bouncy castle.

As with the recent open-air cinema event, if Boston Borough Council is not involved in the spending process it should stay out of it – especially in the case of the open air cat litter tray, which we are told may well delight us for a further seven years.

What we want to know is who broke the mirror to inflict this particular gem on us?

***

Waffle of last week award went – not surprisingly – to Boston Borough Council’s attempts to entice us along to the county heritage open days…

“It is … a timely reminder that Boston boasts as rich a history and heritage as any town in the UK.”

Say again …

Translated, this seems to mean that Boston is pretty well just the same and no different to anywhere else.

“It has been helping to shape the world we know today right from the time a few locals were making salt to keep the Roman legions happy.

“Today visitors from far and wide are attracted to The Wash bird reserves on our doorstep whilst our town boasts cutting-edge food packing and processing businesses that daily fill supermarket shelves around the country.”

We must pay them a visit.

“The history of Boston is on record but it is like a huge iceberg; very little of it is easily available to the public gaze, apart from the Stump of course.”

Polar bears please note – Boston might be worth a visit if you can hack through the Worst Street verbiage …

***

Recently, we tweeted Clownty Hall about a use of English which claimed that road works had been “extended” for the installation of utilities and surfacing – when we felt that they were ignoring the reality that the job had simply been delayed.

Who plans a highway project without installing utilities and laying tarmac?

Now, a slightly different question has arisen – this time with the Wyberton Chain Bridge repairs … which saw it closed to traffic for six week from July.

It should now have been re-opened but the County Council says that “recent repair work has revealed the bridge is in worse condition than expected, with sections of concrete needing to be replaced to ensure it remains safe to use.

“Additionally, the water mains underneath the bridge need upgrading.

“As a result, the bridge is now expected to be closed until the end of September.”

The ensuing chaos can easily be imagined now that the schools are back.

This latest development is described as “unforeseen” because the recent works have “brought to light” sections of concrete that need to be replaced to ensure safety issues don't develop in future. 

So now a route that was promised to reopen as the school holidays ended will now cause problems until the end of the month.

If we had problems with our house, and asked for an “expert” assessment, we would expect it to involve a thorough investigation that would have uncovered all the difficulties.

In this case, it seems that the surface only was scratched – and once it began more problems emerged.

Yet again, we are indebted to Lincolnshire County council for the creation of problems that could have been avoided more easily.

***

It seems that the number of Worst Street panjandrums “passionate” about Boston has doubled in the past week.

Our last blog mentioned the leader’s obsession and now Councillor Claire Rylott has joined the list, according to the Worst Street website.

She has been awarded a seat on the visitor economy board of the Greater Lincolnshire Enterprise Partnership and said: "Now we have a voice and I am determined to make it heard. Boston has such a lot to offer visitors from home and abroad. It will be my mission to sell the area and encourage visitors to linger longer to help boost the visitor economy.”

Aside from the question of why we have not been represented on this board for so long there is the matter of what you do with voices once you have them.

Councillor Rylott was reportedly the brains behind the Visit BostonUK website – and it was stressed that the council would host the site and update useful maps and additional information, it would be "community owned.”

Over the last ten days a fun fair has been held in Central Park – something that we have not seen the likes of for years.

Did it appear in the events list on Visit BostonUK?

No – which is a shame, as fairs at this time of year are infrequent, and some publicity might have pulled a few hundred extra visitors to the town.
Adages that Worst Street might do well to adopt in future should include ... 
If A Job's Worth Doing, It'sWorth Doing Well ...
Start As You Mean To Go On ... and most importantly ...

Don't Take Your Eye Off The Ball.

***

As expected, members of the newly-formed Boston Town Council – formerly known as BTAC-ky – voted to spend an extra £81,000 on two new maintenance officers and a variety of future events.

They are also exploring the idea of increasing their share of the council tax by 10% to fund an even bigger spending splurge – but are looking to set up a workshop to investigate that idea  “before the Autumn” … which began ten days ago if you are a meteorologist or in ten days’ time if you are an astronomer.

The committee looked at a number of other areas currently funded by the Worst Street core and totalling almost £250,000.

In a timely outbreak of common-sense, head Tacky, Councillor Nigel Welton worried that if his free-spending henchpeople took on some of that, then Worst Street might simply reduce the money it already pays.

He is quoted as saying: “We as a committee should only consider taking over on spending where we feel that spending is going to stop, and we feel that particular project is something we might want to deal with.

“The reason we took the decision to raise the precept … was so that we can improve the benefit and lives of those in the BTAC area.

"If we are to spend £248,000 on existing support we are not making one jot of difference to the people of the BTAC area.”

It sounds very plausible – but in reality is little more than a heads-up to Worst Street to get its act together and plead poverty so that the Tackies will foot the bill instead.

The suggested council tax rise would bring in another £50,000 to spend on the town.

The committee agreed to the £81k spend by a vote of four in favour and four against with Chairman Welton breaking the deadlock by casting his vote in favour.

***

Just a moment.

Four-all plus one equals nine – which means that five of the committee members were not in attendance – absenteeism being an endemic part of the role of a BTAC-ky councillor.

It works out that the decision was taken by just 64% of the members– which ought not to be allowed to happen.

Serious spending like this should demand nothing less than a 90% attendance – but many Tackies simply can’t be bothered to take their responsibilities seriously.

It ought not to be beyond the wit of the powers that be to apply some sort of whip on the members – pointing out to them that attendance is little short of mandatory without a good … and we mean good … reason for staying away.

Certainly any decision on a 10% rise in the council tax burden must not be taken lightly – and we need to know who is for and who is against on an issue of such importance.

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