How are you coping with the impending elections?

Excited?

Somehow, we doubt it – but don’t forget that unless you take the trouble to vote, it’s no good moaning about the quality of the councillors who represent you.
As we have said for some while now, don’t think that the result is a foregone conclusion – a point that has been underlined by events of the last few days when every local Tory candidate signed a letter to the national party chairman calling for Prime Minister Theresa May to quit.
Whilst ostensibly citing the travails over Brexit, a look between the lines shows that the local Tories are running scared at the possibility of a trouncing at this Thursday's polls.

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Concrete proof if any were needed has appeared in recent days in the shape of  the ‘for sale’ boards hammered into the front gardens of party supporters to urge people to vote for their favoured candidate.
We have noted a number of them which – whilst as blue as the Tory sky – conspicuously omit any reference to the candidate's political persuasion.
Not only is this remarkably cowardly, but it is obviously a ploy that treats potential voters as stupid – assuming that they are too thick to realise that  they are voting Tory if they put their ‘X’ in the box beside this candidate’s name.
Not exactly the best way to win votes and influence ppeople!

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In their bleat  to Head Office, our local Tory candidates claim that “local people who have supported the Conservatives, who want to vote for us, ... feel utterly betrayed by the present leadership.

“This is likely to have a real impact on blameless local Conservative candidates across the country.

“Despite our positive local messages, good record in office, and effective future plans, the damage done to our Party by the failure of our Leadership to get on with Brexit will harm the delivery of good local services, and the jobs and investment local people rely on. Only by a change at the very top might we reset the trust and goodwill which has been squandered and deliver the Brexit that was promised.” 

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Aside from being left too late, the appeal – which was also sent to the 1922 Committee – failed to bring about any change in the rules to allow an early challenge to Theresa May's leadership, but the committee has asked for more clarity about how long she will remain in office.

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After the details of the letter were made public, MP Matt Warman told Boston Eye that he had not been a signatory  – but did not respond when asked if he endorsed the contents.

But an answer of sorts came a few hours later, when the MP tweeted ...

We're told that this has upset the local party faithful as a whip is a doer for the government ... headed by the very Prime Minister that the locals want to see resign.

Indeed, the role is defined thus: “A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline. This usually means ensuring that members of the party vote according to the party platform, rather than according to their own individual ideology or the will of their constituents. Whips are the party's ‘enforcers.’”

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So what are the odds for Thursday's local elections ...?
Historically, Boston Borough Council had no party in overall control during the 34 years between 1973, when local government was reorganised and 2007 when the Bypass Independents took the reins and rode the horse straight through the hedge and into Becher’s Brook.

The Tories took control for the 2011-2015 term – much to their surprise, we recall – and since then the council has been listed as again under no overall control although various defections and political shenanigans have recently given the Tories back control.

According to Worst Street’s so-called “website” the council's current political composition is: Conservative - 16, UKIP - 6, Independent - 4, Bostonian Independents - 3, Unaligned – 1.

Given the state of the parties over the past 46 years we’d say it could be anybody’s race.

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The imminence of the elections has prompted more words of wisdom from our contributor Scanner – whose closing words are food for thought for us all …

Goodbye Marks and Spencer – hello Lidl.

The loss of the former and the introduction of the latter to the town centre just highlights the problems in that area that have been festering for many years – shop closures and the cost and availability of parking.

Rising rents by absentee landlords and perpetually increasing business rates are usually blamed for the closure of shops.

What most councillors seem to forget is that if the customers aren’t there the shops cannot make the profit needed to pay their way, and that sacked staff lose income to spend in the shops.

I have mentioned the loss of IT3 and IT4 bus services previously.

I now hear that other IT services had their routes changed. In effect this means that even more pensioners are deprived of their shopping trip. As ones I have spoken to loved to get out and were regular shoppers at M&S, down goes the central footfall once more. 

Have there been protests at these service cuts from West Street or from our local county councillors? I doubt it. Yet on Look North it was reported that a Boston to Skegness bus service is to be saved from closure after protests from Friskney produced intervention and support from ‘the council.’ I didn’t catch which one – East Lindsey or the County Council. Surprising, as there is already a regular service by another company between Boston and Skegness.

The arrival of another supermarket in the centre of Boston is, perhaps, good news. but, at the loss of valuable parking spaces?

I understand from a former councillor that both the site for a multi-storey car park and Park and Ride were investigated many years ago. At that time, the figures showed that the multi-storey was not viable.

The Park and Ride vanished when the officer involved left.

What a pity that the council, when the supermarket announced its plans to build in Tawney Street, didn’t suggest that there could be co-operation to build a multi-storey car park on that site.

Would a Park and Ride solve some of the problems as well?

Finally: Charges for parking.

I sympathise with the problem West Street has juggling with diminishing finances, but, it’s a downward spiral. Closed shops = less business rates = less customer footfall = less income = closed shops. And less income from parking.

Boston has a bad reputation for huge traffic congestion, lack of parking where people need to be and high parking charges.  

Lincolnshire County Council seems impervious to Boston’s existence. “There is a need for bypasses to the north, south and west of us” (Does Spalding really need the new bypass being planned?) we are told.  LCC ‘experts’ see no traffic actually flowing through Boston. There still seems no will locally by councillors to challenge this blinkered vision.

Historical purists would love to see traffic barred completely from the Market Place – possibly filled with tables and chairs and people drinking coffee I suppose? – and kept clear for the many events we were promised – if there is money to fund them of course. 

The Market Place has been the busy hub of the town since it came into existence. I doubt that there was never a day when people crossing it had to watch out for riders, stage coaches and horses and carts as they crossed to do their shopping.  Many councils are introducing free one-hour parking to attract people back to town centres.

My friend, controversially perhaps, would like to see the present empty part of the Market Place – the part surrounded by bollards – used for one-hour free parking with a machine that issues tickets with the car number on it to prevent misuse.

The present charges there could be adapted to allow for the first hour to be free as well.

And, even more controversially, ask M&S to keep their food store open – even expand it – and create, with support from the council, a daily indoor market to complement the Wednesday and Saturday open air ones.  Then move the Bargate stalls and auction inside. This would clear The Green for more parking on market days.

Finally, do you think parking charges for evenings and Sundays really help the so called “night time” and “weekend” economies to flourish?

I am writing this with hours to go before the next Borough elections. Let’s hope the new councillors have the strength and vision to make Boston a force to be reckoned with, once more.

Big is not always the answer.

Earlier we applied quotation marks to the word website as it refers to Worst Street as we no longer regard the council’s offering as being in that category.

Since it changed address many users have reported considerable trouble in finding information – and we are certain that hundreds of pages have been deleted.

Now it is a case of not only knowing what you are looking for, but often having to know the precise (and often arcane) wording needed to find it.

Increasingly, we believe that Worst Street’s aim is to make communication with the taxpayers difficult, if not impossible.

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Similar sentiments have been voiced by the Witham Central and Carlton Road Neighbourhood Action Group whose fears cover a major concern in Boston – that of houses in multiple occupation … HMOs.

The group says: “We share your concerns about the lack of transparency of the new Boston Borough Website. Attached is an outline of our concerns regarding its failing to provide information regarding HMO issues. The issue has been raised at our local Placecheck meeting.

The outline says:

The HMO Public Register is not available on it, although this is a legal obligation.

The council has focused on recent additional HMO regulations despite their legal obligations under the 2018 Housing Act.

There is an emphasis on tenants reporting poor accommodation under “Strengthening Consumer redress in the Housing Market and Property Sector.” They are asked to fill out a Housing Disrepair Complaint Form #3571175 and provided information on MYBOSTONUK.COM about “disrepair, Information For Tenants.” This information is not complete and does not cover HMO issues. There are some links provided and a phone number.

This practice discriminates against immigrants who have limited English and are unaware of their legal rights.

It also protects tenants who wish to sublet the property they are renting.

Landlords are given information online what constitutes a HMO and given the contact number of the Private housing Sector team.

They are given some information about management regulations but it is incomplete and does not cover such issues as room size. It is also not made clear their responsibility towards their tenants’ actions. For example, if the tenants act illegally, act in an antisocial way.

There is no information on rogue landlord registers. They are provided with links to register.

There is no information online about any fines in the area for illegal HMOs or rogue landlords or agents.

The council, unlike many other councils, does not have a policy about dealing with high concentrations of HMOs.

The Housing Ombudsman Service is now taking a more important role in regulating HMOs … a “Redress Reform Working Group.” The information available is at present limited, but is available online under the council website.”

And we thought it was difficult simply trying to get basic, everyday information!

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Whilst Boston Borough Council now draws the line on recording meetings because it’s become too much trouble, it has no fears about embracing more complex technology elsewhere.

A recruitment video was put online recently to try to tempt applicants to apply for three well-paid and senior jobs.

But take a look and tell us – would you be interested in responding to this piece of amateur movie making?

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Having said that, we think that the Cecil B DeMille wannabes on the Worst Street studio lot are improving slightly – a previous epic aimed at encouraging people who want to become councillors was a desperate piece of work as you can see if you click here   … but this is only slightly better.

The sound is harsh; there are a couple of jump cuts within the minute-long presentation, and the acoustics are terrible.

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Watching it, an outsider might be hard-pressed to believe the claim that “whilst we’re small in Boston, we’re a council that punches way above our weight.”

Frankly it looks and sounds as though Worst Street is on the ropes as the referee stands by to declare a knockout.

Finding good staff these days must be difficult … though the time is long gone when council staff were poorly rewarded and senior roles demanded long hours and hard work.

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The three jobs being advertised include a Growth Manager – another of those endearing job titles that we mentioned in a recent edition.

Notably for such a wonderful place to work and live, the post is being advertised for the second time in less than year … the previous closing date was 2^nd July 2018, and the latest closes tomorrow.

The two other jobs are IT Manager and Principal Planning Officer – and together they pay £120,000 a year.

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Worst Street needs to get its act together if it wants to attract top-quality staff. To be honest the area has little to offer apart from cheap housing and one of the main reasons that so many people stay is because they can’t afford to move elsewhere.

Boston is one of the smallest councils in the country and has a mindset and imagination to match, and all the sloganizing in the world – ‘whilst we’re small in Boston we’re a council that punches way above our weight’ – is clearly bollocks as the state the place is in proves.

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If Worst Street plans to use broadcast media to up its image and make itself seem attractive, then it needs to do it professionally, and not stick any Tom, Dick or Harriet in front of a microphone or camera

It is self deluding to believe and do otherwise.

The results speak for themselves.

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And whilst we’re on about this sort of thing, a positive attitude is always a help – which is why we were disappointed at this tweet which accompanied a chart which claims that Lincolnshire is the fourth poorest area in Northern Europe ...

  

Such a ‘nothing to do with me guv’ throwaway from the £40,000+ a year Economic Development Manager at Boston Borough Council really got up our nose.

Surely a major part of his role is to try to see that such a slur is removed from our part of the world at least – not laugh it off, which is how it seems.

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Meanwhile, Worst Street has published the results of its latest business survey – an exercise that creates a lot of waste paper and a mountain of statistical information which like much of the stuff emanating from Boston’s answer to Fawlty Towers is of dubious value.

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Out of the 2,000-plus businesses in and around the borough only 82 completed the survey – which the council proudly declared was 64% more than in 2017/18. What a waste of time that survey was, then.

The headlines were that the top three issues identified as obstacles to business growth were: business rates (44%); in joint 2^nd place at 36% licensing and regulation (something at which Worst Street excels) and raw material prices; and thirdly, the availability of a suitable workforce (35%.)

More than half of the respondents employed fewer than ten people, and only 6% more than 100.

44% of respondents reported that they had performed either a lot weaker or slightly weaker than in the previous year – and discouragingly expected something similar for the year ahead.

Of course, since this pointless exercise was carried out, we have said farewell to Marks and Spencer, the GAME store and a Clinton’s outlet.

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Doubtless Worst Street will seize the opportunity to turn the figures into pages of reports whilst at the same time taking no action to try to improve matters – although perhaps an inspirational tweet from a senior officer along the lines of “maybe here in Boston we need to do a little better” might well do the trick.

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Because we had questions about wheelie bin collections over the Easter holiday, we dropped an e-mail to Worst Street.

Admittedly, our inquiry was short and sweet, as it was sent to the so-called website, with Bin Collections as the subject line and a text which asked: “Any clues about Easter yet?” –  in case the new-look, all-singing, all-dancing world-wide-wonder had hidden the information somewhere no one would think of looking.

After all, that’s what it does with pretty well everything else.

The reply we received mirrored, we thought, the changing attitudes of Worst Street towards its customers.

No salutation – and the most abrupt and cursory of replies, to wit: “The bin men work bank holidays except for over Christmas so your bin collection day remains unchanged.

“You received a bin calendar in your council tax bill which would have shown this.”

Elsewhere this is referred as telling people to stick their head up a bear’s bum.

In Worst Street it is laughingly referred to as customer service.

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Earlier we mentioned the mistaken belief among the powers that be that Boston is the best place on earth.

It may not be that bad – but whilst Worst Street’s efforts appear alongside website headlines such as ‘Man gets boy to film him throwing mud and stones at unconscious man’ and ‘Commuters watch on in disgust as two men urinate near bus station’ then the council certainly faces an uphill struggle.

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These headlines come to us courtesy of a website called Lincolnshire Live – the webface of the Boston Target.

And whilst we would defend their professional duty to bring such things to the public’s attention, we draw then line at making a meal out of bad news alone – such as in the piece below …

It’s now more than two years since Boston’s Chief Executive and the group leaders of the day wrote to local editors to ask for a respite from the bad news.

That was a silly thing to do – as part of the council's responsibility is for the health, wealth and betterment of the borough … and if they sit idly by as it goes down the tubes it’s no good asking for a gag on the facts.

But when the media seems to be targeting Boston with a slightly vicious streak, then enough is enough – and it’s time for Worst Street to get its crayons out again.

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