One would
scarcely expect by-elections to be like buses – but in Boston it seems to be
the case that you wait for ages … and then two of them come along almost at
once.
***
On Tuesday
15th October, we were treated to the resignation of local businessman and Tory cabinet
member Alistair Arundell after just 23 weeks representing Skirbeck ward – and last
Monday we bade farewell to another Conservative … Kirton and Frampton’s Shaun Blackman, who has
quit citing “personal commitments”.
***
In a
statement Mr Blackman said: “It’s with deep regret that I announce my
resignation with immediate effect as councillor of Kirton and Frampton ward.
The time needed for the role is greater than that I have available, and I feel
that I can not [sic] give the dedication and commitment required to provide an
effective level of service and effectiveness to the residents of my elected
ward.
“I thank
fellow councillors, the leader, and residents for supporting me along my journey,
however sadly feel I can no longer continue in position.”
Leader of
Boston Borough Council, Aaron Spencer – who must by now be getting the hand of
commenting on colleagues’ resignations – said: “I’m saddened that Shaun
Blackman has decided to resign from his position as councillor for Kirton and
Frampton Ward.
“Shaun was
a committed and devoted person, who’s support and loyalty has been highly
valued, however his decision to resign is understandable, due to wanting to
spend time with his family. I wish Shaun all the very best for the future.”
***
So; two resignations
in the space of a week – and whilst we thought that one might mean a bit of
foot-dragging as far as calling a by-election is concerned, the council is now
6½% down on its total of 30 members and 14% on the Tory ruling group numbers.
We last
had a by-election in February 2018 – and before that way back in 2013.
***
Both
Skirbeck and Kirton & Frampton are big wards with three councillors
apiece – but they are marked by voter apathy.
At the
elections last May, the Skirbeck turnout was the lowest of the 30 wards at
22.4% -– with Kirton and Frampton little better on 25.2%.
***
The result
last time was fought out between just five candidates – two Conservatives, two Labour,
and one Independent – who as with the case in Skirbeck emerged as a member of the
Bostonian Independents Group, BiG and therefore, as we said last week is a member of
a pseudo party rather than a true independent.
The
outcome was a win for the two Tories and the BiGger candidate
***
Back in
2015 two Tories and a Kipper took the honours – and we suspect that the Tories might
cling on again this time.
***
We’re less sure about who might win in Skirbeck.
The three Tory candidates there polled 814 votes between them with Labour's trio running a close second on 812.
We would
expect them to field candidates again this time around, and both BiG – which didn’t
declare itself by name in Skirbeck in May – and the Blue Revolution have
indicated their intention to fight again.
In fact, just as we were going to press, Blue Revolution’s Christopher Moore – who contested the seat in May and polled 186 votes … sadly for him the lowest figure on the day – e-mailed Boston Eye to say: “I refer to your comment in the last edition where you state that ‘perhaps’ a Blue Revolution candidate may stand in the Skirbeck ward's by-election when it is called.
***
In fact, just as we were going to press, Blue Revolution’s Christopher Moore – who contested the seat in May and polled 186 votes … sadly for him the lowest figure on the day – e-mailed Boston Eye to say: “I refer to your comment in the last edition where you state that ‘perhaps’ a Blue Revolution candidate may stand in the Skirbeck ward's by-election when it is called.
“I am
proud to say that you can delete the word ‘perhaps.’
“I am
putting myself forward again as I did last time.
“Event
after event demonstrates how badly the traditional party system is ‘broken.’
“Radical
change is now needed more than ever.
“I really
enjoyed chatting with people and listening to what they really thought about
all kind of concerns.
“As you say, there are ‘interesting times ahead,’ and I
look forward to the challenge of representing the folk of Skirbeck in any way
that I am able.”
***
Certainly,
the ruling group needs to win both seats if it can.
A look at the
Worst Street political breakdown after last week’s announcement showed the
Conservatives claiming 15 of the 30 seats – but one of those was an Independent
‘aligned’ with the Tories … which is not a guarantee of a vote should push come
to shove on any contentious issues.
***
Genuine Independents number six – but include
two former senior Tories who again might find themselves on the spot in the event
that their one-time loyalties were to be tested.
Bostonian Independents total five, and
Labour has two councillors.
***
So, at
present, the controlling group in a contentious debate owns only 14 of the 30
seats – which is why we think that they are hoping for a rapid pair of
by-elections.
And
another problem facing leader Aaron Spencer – if he doesn’t have enough already
– is playing the game of hunt the cabinet member.
***
To the
surprise of some, he chose two brand-new councillors for cabinet membership after
May’s elections – one of whom – Alistair Arundell has now quit.
Of the
fourteen councillors available to pick from, six are already in the cabinet,
one is the mayor and so out of the running and of the remaining seven another
is a former leader and so we imagine is also out of contention.
There is a
saying that you can’t make bricks without straw – but it may be that Councillor
Spencer could find himself being forced to have a go.
He reportedly told last week's cabinet that he will take on
the tourism portfolio as well as leading the cabinet and keeping the books.
We trust that this will be pro tem – as what is
supposed to be a democratic group is increasingly leaning towards a dictatorship.
***
We make no
apologies for banging on about the way that BTAC is taking the strain when it comes
to bearing the cost of the so-called transformation project which is
making millions of pounds in cuts so that the leadership can doff its topper to
Tory Central for following unpopular orders.
The most
recent example was of a massive scheme of events (£30,000 over the previous
year’s budget and some of it unspecified ... see last week's blog) sent to be approved by the cabinet because of the excessive
level of spending ... but which really needs challenging.
***
The
original BTAC brief was to spend its comparatively small budget to support the
wards that it represented – eight of them in some of the poorest areas of the
town.
But as the
transformation project boulder gained speed as it rolled down the hill BTAC was
forced to take on more and more.
Its budget
has soared from £100,000 to £700,000 with minor tweaks in its so-called constitution
allow this virement to take place.
The upshot
is that the leadership can show head office a squeaky-ish clean balance sheet
whilst town centre taxpayers pay the price.
***
The was
admitted in a recent set of cabinet minutes, which boasted …
***
Interestingly
Worst Street itself defines BTAC-ky thus: “The Boston town area of the Borough
doesn’t have a parish council and BTAC fills that gap, reflecting and
representing the views of the residents of the town wards.”
The italics
are ours – and highlights what is not being done – i.e. BTAC is not representing
the views of its residents.
***
In all the
time it has been disregarding its responsivities, no member of the committee appears
to have had the bottle to challenge what has been happening – and as we
reported last week BTAC is now wanting to spread its wings still further and stage
events that will bring visitors into the borough from farther afield.
***
Perhaps
one reason why this state of affairs has gone on for so long is because no-one
is prepared to grasp the nettle that would see BTAC becoming truly independent
of Boston Borough Council.
***
The last
time this was looked at was by the previous Chief Executive Richard Harbord –
who reported that new, simpler rules were to be introduced in March 2013.
After much
waffling the committee resolved that he should report back to a future meeting
of the with details of the new regulations for forming town councils in
relation to the future of BTAC as an Area Committee or as a stand-alone town
council, and also on BTAC’s constitution and whether it could take on more
powers.
***
Mr Harbord
reported back in December 2013 to say that the new rules would come in by September
2014.
They would
involve a petition by residents followed by a review.
He concluded:
“I will be reporting to the Cabinet in due course about this, should it become necessary.
The review will take 2 F.T.E (full-time equivalent job post) to complete in 12
months and with consultation will cost around £70,000.
“The
Borough Council will meet this sum.”
***
A look
back through past cabinet meetings shows that this item never reached the
agenda whilst Mr Harbord remained in office – he resigned in September 2015 –
and as far as we can tell has never seen the light of day via his successor
since.
***
As we
know, everything in Worst Streets takes years to achieve – and readers with
long memories might like to be reminded that it’s now two years since BTAC was
offered a simple solution that would have seen an end to the once contentious
issue of IntoTown buses using Strait Bargate as a rat run.
But – by long
standing tradition – this opportunity was never taken up.
Perhaps
now that we are now supposed to have a committee on climate change, someone might
think it a good idea to remove diesel pollution from a pedestrian shopping centre
which sees choking smoke disgorged at pushchair level.
***
Are things
going on behind the scenes in Boston that we aren’t being told about?
Back in
September we reported that our Deputy Chief Executive Michelle Sacks was a
guest speaker at a “Focus on Footfall” event in Nottingham where the subject
under discussion was: “How BIDs and local authorities can support local
business, creating vibrant places that people want to visit.”
***
The history
of Boston Business ‘Improvement’ District is forever seared on the minds of the
local firms dragged into its catchment area and forced to pay a levy that they
could ill afford.
Failure to
do so resulted in a court appearance a fine and a criminal record.
***
For five years
Boston BID blew £100,000 a year with no effect until it was voted out of
existence in 2013 when its one and only term expired, rather than being given a
continuance.
As with
BTAC-ky, Worst Street backed Boston BID to the hilt – despite a critical task
and finish group report – because the BID was doing some of the work that the
council had previously been responsible for and thus saved it money.
***
So, to see
a senior officer enthusing about what appears to be a case for business
improvement groups made the hairs on the back of our neck rise – and we’re sure
gave local businesses a return of the fits of the screaming abdabs all over
again.
***
If such a
return from the dead by a Boston BID is remotely possible, then why have we not
heard about it other than obliquely?
***
What’s
more, something else leapt from the woodwork recently – again involving our
deputy chief.
The occasion
was something called the Local Government Strategy Forum which “brings together
the finest thought leaders and peers from across the industry to share ideas
and help you improve your organisation.”
***
The item on
the agenda told us in a 67-word sentence: “Boston Council has been working
closely across all levels of education in collaboration with business to
understand the future needs and wants of the world of employment, and where
businesses can help influence and shape the way we inspire and educate our
young people, and this raises productivity through higher skills and wages
enabling robotics to replace mundane tasks previously reliant on a transient
low skilled workforce.”
***
Not only
do we keep a fairly close eye on what Worst Street is doing, but so do
many of our readers.
Yet a
straw poll among them could find no-one who recalls such an ambitious initiative.
***
The
suggestion in the agenda is that Worst Street has been striving for some time
to improve the educational lot of our young folk.
But as
always, the devil is in the data …
The
information above comes from the Lincolnshire Observatory and has been
selected at random for illustrative purposes.
The
complete statistics show Boston consistently at the bottom of the pile for qualifications
at all levels – not just for last year but for the last decade.
***
Not only
that. But recent figures published on a local ‘news’ website showed the
majority of the borough’s secondary schools listed as being in need of
improvement.
***
For a
brief moment, we thought that we were perhaps moving from those dark days of
our previous MP Mark Simmonds, who famously declared in a radio interview when
asked about the lack of jobs for locals: “I can meet some young people in
Boston who say ‘Mark, when are you going to get all these migrants out of our
town, and I say to them, ‘Well, when you’re prepared to go into the fields or
the packhouses.’”
***
With
average pay in the Boston and Skegness constituency in the order of £16-£18,000
a year, anything that might improve opportunities for school-leavers starting
out in work is to be applauded.
***
But with a
low wage economy dependent on land work and packhouse shifts, what is likely to
emerge once “robotics replace mundane tasks previously reliant on a transient
low skilled workforce.”
***
Perhaps
Worst Street would like to tell us more about this mysterious cunning plan.
***
There’s no
blog next week a) because later today we are sampling the delights of the NHS
which may see us out of commission for a couple of days and b) because we have
a birthday.
All being
well, we will be back in a couple of weeks …
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com
E– mails will be treated in
confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Our former blog is archived at:
http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com
We are on Twitter – visit
@eye_boston
