We were saddened but not surprised at the attack on the aviary in the town’s Central Park in which 30 birds were stolen and others killed by exhaustion and distress.

Such a vile event has been a long time coming – especially since the park gates have been left open at night.

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When the decision was first taken, the reason offered was that it would save money … as the park's closing time was at sunset, which required a council officer to work later and later during the summer months to ensure that it was secured.

Although we can’t lay our hands on a precise figure, similar charges for another park in the town came in at the £3,000 a year mark.

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Whilst Councillor Claire Rylott, Worst Street’s portfolio holder for parks and open spaces – or her Spinster – had much to say on the matter, some of it was quite contradictory.

WorstWeb – the borough website – had her saying: "This is such a mindless, determined, deliberate and heartless act.”

Whilst we accept that the word mindless is de rigueur when associated with vandalism, it can scarcely be defined as that if is also determined and deliberate.

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The incident prompted a petition on the website change.org  which attracted hundreds of signatures in a very short space of time.

It read:

“Over recent months Boston Borough Council have decided to leave the Park gates open at night.

This has led to an increase in street drinking within the park, anti-social behaviour within the park, people urinating and leaving human excrement in the park, and now birds have been killed and stolen. 

Many people now avoid the park because of this. All we want is to get the council to lock the gates at night to make the park secure and safe from all the behaviour and damage being caused. It’s our park and we want to enjoy it and look after it.”

*** 

However, according to the website Lincolnshire Reporter, the idea does not cut any ice with the portfolio holder.

“Councillor Rylott said the park wasn’t locked so people could enjoy it all the time and she believed the attack on the aviary would have taken place anyway.

“’In the past they have climbed the walls to get into the park,’ she said.

“’People have gone in there and because the gates were locked they have probably done more damage than when the gates were opened because people could see them.

“’This was a mindless, deliberate and determined act and closing the gates I don’t think would have stopped it.’”

“She said vandalism happened everywhere … not just in the park … and pointed to recent reports of residents’ decorative pumpkins being smashed over Halloween.

“Councillor Rylott pointed to a national rise in crime, and said parks in other towns and cities, such as Lincoln, or Hyde Park, in London, weren’t locked.”

That’s all right then.

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The report continued: “She also called on residents to do their part and be more vigilant, including coming forward to report any incidents they witnessed.

“She urged people to be more positive and pro-active in promoting the town, pointing to recent good news such as the five recent In-Bloom awards which had been won.

“She said a negative image put professionals off coming to the town and spoilt the hard work of those aiming to improve it.”

Quite how many times Worst Street can dine out on creating a carefully structured entry into a competition so as to ensure a win regardless, we can’t imagine.

However, it is wearing a little thin when we are told at the same time that there is vandalism everywhere and that we mustn’t talk about it.

Unlike Councillor Rylott, we believe that birds would not have been stolen had the gates been locked – because trying to clamber over railings or walls would be made extra difficult whilst clutching an armful of mezze-to-be.

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Despite the continuing praise heaped on the increasingly overworked CCTV service, Worst Street confirmed that camera footage came back as inconclusive and therefore of no use to help catch the culprits.

Hands up if you’ve heard that one before.

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But the drama turned to farce with the claim by Councillor Rylott that closing the park at night would be letting the minority who want to ruin the town “win”.

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Regular readers of Boston Eye will have noted the number of times we made the accusation that the bad guys win because Worst Street not only looks the other way – but paves the path for wrongdoing to continue.

Over the years, Central Park has been butchered on the orders of councillors seeking to curb anti-social behaviour – such as using well-established foliage as al fresco accommodation … and subsequently employing the leaves as a natural toilet paper.

This may well explain why holly bushes have long enjoyed immunity.

Similar defoliation was imposed on Pilgrim’s Patch – again, to stop the bad guys winning.

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In 2012, BTAC-ky launched a vigorous campaign of ripping up amenity seating around the town based on often unsupported complaints that they had become a focus for open air drinking.

At a rough count, at least 30 benches were removed in the fruitless ‘battle’ on anti-social activity in Boston – and the upshot was that anyone needing a brief respite on a long walk can simply forget about it.

This is what we complained was a case of letting the bad guys win.

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A glittering example of this Jobsworth mentality at the time emerged when it was suggested that benches on London Road should be circumvolved to face the roadside. They then faced the river and people were throwing cans into it so the whirligig was agreed to see if it would reduce littering. 

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This latest episode reminded us of the Central Park centenary plan to mark the land which was once a private deer park being given to the public 100 years ago next year.

Whilst Worst Street broke the news back in July – reporting at the time that a bid for lottery funding to support further improvements has been made – things have since fallen strangely silent. 

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The instant demise of Fogarty’s after 150 years in the town with the loss of around 200 jobs has seen a heartening rallying round by other local employers.

Bakkavor, Freshtime, Pilgrim Foods and Workforce Unlimited were among those which offered varying degrees of assistance to those made jobless.

Response from Worst Street was more muted.

The news failed to rate a mention on WorstWeb and was instead confined to the borough’s Twitter feed.

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One of these messages read – “Great to see local businesses pulling together to support the work ourselves and DWP are delivering this week …”

The nature of the work was to mention that the Department of Work and Pensions was holding support sessions for up to 12 people in each of five one-hourly slots.

Some basic maths showed that this would only extend help to 60 people – around a third of those affected. So it came as no surprise that they had to be arranged for a second day – and most likely fell short even then.

Another piece of Worst Street work was to draw attention to their own vacancies – a less than glittering eight-long list that included three causal vacancies and apprenticeships.

***

Conspicuous by its absence was any official comment from senior councillors and officers with responsibility for the town’s economy.

Compare that with the way Worst Street has piggybacked on the few occasions when good news emerges – most commonly when the council has had little or nothing to do with these successes.

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Even Lincolnshire County Council was forced to admit that it was caught with its trousers down over the Fogarty collapse.

Councillor Colin Davie the executive member for economy at Clownty Hall expressed shock but admitted that Fogarty’s “wasn’t on the authority’s radar”.

He was reported as saying: “We have intelligence on a lot of businesses, how they are performing. Fogarty was not on our list as a business that was in trouble or was in danger of collapse so it was a shock to us and a total shock obviously for the workforce.”

Unhelpfully, he added: “Looking back on the announcement, as a big supplier of products to a lot of the big High Street chain stores maybe there was something about that, or that they found it increasingly difficult to compete in what is now a global marketplace for those products, I don’t know”

How comforting to have such people at the helm.

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Even Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond was roped into the discussion during a visit to the county.

And he spouted the usual pabulum.

… “obviously it's traumatic, but the good news is that there are jobs being created in the economy … help available to get training to get new skills to take on a new job … hard workers who are reliable and prepared to put in a good day’s work are highly sought after … people affected will find that there are new opportunities for them with stable and reliable employers in the future … very sad when a business closes … it sounds like something quite drastic happened for it to close so suddenly.”

Clearly the man knows nothing about the local job economy here in Boston.

***

The cameras were out and about in Boston last week for the filming of Wild Bill – starring Rob Lowe as “top US cop Bill Hixon, who is appointed Chief Constable of the East Lincolnshire Police Force.”

The blurb for the movie declares: “When high-flying US police chief Bill Hixon lands in Boston, Lincolnshire, with his 14 year-old daughter Kelsey in tow, he’s hoping they can flee their painful recent past.

“But this unfamiliar, unimpressed community will force Bill to question everything about himself and leave him asking whether it’s Boston that needs Bill, or Bill that needs Boston?”

We have an uneasy feeling that we can guess what to expect – and that  the drama will do little for Boston’s image.

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The scene was pretty well set on the first day as a photo from one of the many social media offerings showed  Boston’s new Sherf encountering a couple of extras boozing on a bench in full public gaze …

… and looking the other way.

***

Check out the entire scene as posted by BBC Radio Lincolnshire broadcaster and ‘lover of windmills’ Harry Parkhill ...

As an aside, we hear that Boston was not first choice for the location.

That distinction had gone to Liverpool – but a visit deemed the city too neat and tidy for the needs of the script.

And we also understand that whilst Lincolnshire County Council was happy to help the film company, Worst Street was much less welcoming.

Another missed opportunity.

***

One good thing was that the filming banished the Into Town buses from Strait Bargate and the Market Place – leaving them to U-turn at near Boots and W H Smith for a blessedly peaceful day.

This is nothing new, and has been done before – so if it is that simple, could the arrangement just as easily become permanent?

***

Why is it that we think Worst Street is gearing itself up to try to win yet another badge?

The council is exhorting us to vote for Boston Market in the National Association of British Market Authorities awards – although whether it has entered officially is anyone’s guess.

We have mentioned this event and the absence of any Worst Street involvement several times in the past – but this is the first time that it has surfaced officially.

Voting closes on 30^th November – but the really good news is that you can vote more than once.

Listen hard ... the noise you can hear is the clacking of the Worst Street keyboards!

***

But awards now seem to be the name of the game in the wacky world of Worst Street, with the trumpeting of a shortlisting in the LGC Awards 2019 environmental services category.

LGC?

That’s the Local Government Chronicle – a house magazine for councils.

Worst Street called the shortlisting “a fantastic achievement."

The entry detailed the efforts to combat the “scourges” of litter and fly tipping under the umbrella of the Boston Big Clean-up, and a team of three from the council will appear before the panel of judges choosing the overall winner from the eight finalists in March to make their case for a badge.

Doubtless such awards are nice to have on the trophy shelf, although they mean next to nothing to the taxpayer in the street.

We seem to recall that Worst Street won a gong for the clean-up once before – and like Boston in Bloom it represents something of an easy target.

***

And it’s as well to remember that a few years ago, Worst Street – of all places – won an award for being the country's top council for transparency, inclusiveness and accountability from the Centre for Public Scrutiny.

‘Nuff said.

***

Finally – and as expected – there was no reaction to last week’s rant about the Remembrance Day traffic information sign.

It was still in place on Friday – and exacerbated matters by being within yards of the War Memorial where yesterday’s ceremonies were held.

In the end, we e-mailed Boston borough Council and Lincolnshire County Council and asked them who was responsible.

Boston Borough Council was first out of the trap with a not me, guv’ response and pointed the finger firmly at Clownty Hall. 

From Lincoln came first an admission followed by disclaimer that placed the blame on whoever was organising the event … although we didn’t think that any Tom, Dick or Harry could post warnings of traffic restrictions without consent from the powers that be.

***

On Saturday we walked into town to be greeted by a brand new sign that put the old one to shame. 

On the back of the sign was a declaration of ownership – “Property of Lincolnshire County Council.”

So whilst the original was posted by a third party, it could be removed and replaced by the county council without any apparent problem.

Which begs the question – why couldn’t all this have been sorted our days ago?

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We're back next week – join us on Monday 19^th November.

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