Stands the clock at half past four

And Skirbeck Tory is no more. 

With almost surgical precision, Alastair Arundell’s meteoric rise and fall from soaring rocket to damp squib was announced at exactly 4-30pm last Tuesday 15^th October.

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Elected in May for the first time, Mr Arundell was appointed portfolio holder for the town centre, then moved further up the command chain to take on the portfolio for tourism, arts, culture and heritage.

At one time there were mutterings that he might even be  in line to be elevated to deputy leader should there be a reshuffle – just a heartbeat away from the presidency.

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When leader Aaron Spencer last tweaked his portfolio holders’ line-up, he said that he didn’t plan changing his cabinet in the immediate future, and pledged a staged process of “working together,” which would be a two-way process, for the benefit of Boston.

Given the narrow choice of new candidates, might this be the time to co-opt a non-Tory party member on board?

We wait with bated breath.

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Meanwhile, in a warm and touching tribute to his former colleague, Councillor Spencer wrote on Twitter: “I'm saddened that @CllrAArundell has decided to resign from his position within @Bostonboro.

“It's been a pleasure to work alongside Alistair over the last 5 months, however I respect his decision to not let residents down due to his work commitments.”

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But back to Mr Arundell’s departure.

In a statement published last Tuesday 15^th, he declared:

Over the last 5 months as a Councillor, I feel I have gained a huge knowledge into a side of Boston Borough Council that I wasn’t aware of, prior to being elected.

A considerable amount of hard work goes into ensuring our town has the facilities it does, and I was proud to have the opportunity to better it further.

However, due to personal circumstances, after discussing with Councillor Aaron Spencer, Leader of the Council, I have decided to resign from my position with immediate effect. 4.30pm 15th oct.

I thank the residents in Skirbeck ward for electing me back in May, and wish all colleagues the best of luck for the future.

Boston is a marvellous town with huge potential, and I’m confident that, working with the residents, it can thrive again.

People who know me understand I give 100 percent to anything I do and with the latest business acquisition I don’t feel I could now give that as I just won’t have the time and understand that this is not fair to the wonderful people of Boston.

Thank you so much for your support, I will never forget it.

So what was that support?

Below is the result of the election in May, when nine candidates contested the three seats.

 

The 2,736 votes cast produced the lowest turnout of any ward in the vote and represented 22.4% of the electorate.

Along with Alastair Arundel two ‘Independents’ were elected – although they subsequently unmasked themselves as members of the Bostonian Independents Group, and therefore a pseudo party rather than truly independent.

Nonetheless, they created a local website – which has not been updated since 19^th May, so they’ve been busy, haven’t they?

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Skirbeck could be an interesting ward when an election date is set.

As you can see from May’s results there were two other Tory candidates, three Labour, and one Blue Revolution.

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Back in 2015, the result looked like this …

Kipper Stephen Ball subsequently slipped sideways into Boston BiG, and ‘distinguished’ himself with one of the worst attendance records of recent years.

Labour’s Paul Gleeson – a veteran with a good reputation as a councillor, lost out last time, and Tory Martin Griggs sought successful re-election in another seat rather than risk re-election in  Skirbeck for a second time.

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Of the remainder, the only other wannabee to try again was Labour’s Paul Kenny a former mayor and prospective parliamentary candidate at the last four general elections.

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So, we can probably bet on a Conservative and Labour entry; perhaps a Blue Revolution, and maybe even a Brexit bid.

Interesting times ahead.

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Whilst Alistair Arundell made his mark in a rapid space of time in Worst Street, his disappearance was even quicker.

This was his entry on the Worst Street website of councillors early the morning after he quit.

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So why did he decide to go?

It’s been said that the idea had been in his mind for a while – though having only been in office for 23 weeks one has to ask  - why bother to stand in the first place?

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One part of his farewell missive to voters cites “personal circumstances,” while another speaks of his latest business acquisition which he says means “I just won’t have the time” for the council.

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An interesting sidebar to the time frame is that after Mr Arundell’s resignation at 4-30pm, an e-mailed response to an official complaint was disclosed to Boston Eye that was sent on behalf of Chief Executive Phil Drury less than 20 minutes later.

The complaint was made after the October meeting of BTAC-ky and alleged that during an item concerning next year’s events “there were several failures in declaration of interest – in particular Councillor Arundell’s failure to speak and propose an item without declaring he was the relevant portfolio holder.”

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The reply stated: “I am satisfied that Councillor Arundell was at BTAC in his capacity as a member of the committee by virtue of being a ward member for the Skirbeck ward.  He sat at the table and participated as such. In this respect I do not see that there was any ‘interest’ which prevented him in engaging fully in any discussions on matters which, by coincidence, fell within the remit of his areas as Portfolio Holder. 
“Specifically, Cabinet members, who are also members of BTAC, should not be disadvantaged in representing their electorate. If and when any referrals from BTAC to the Executive which fall outside of the scope of the delegated decision-making process are considered, that will be the point at which members should consider making any declarations of interest.  In this case BTAC was not the decision maker and the recommendation will be considered by Cabinet on 23^rd October.

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Which brings us on to that BTAC-ky meeting …

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Last week, we highlighted the news that because of the Boston May Fair, Worst Street would be unable to recognise the importance of the 75^th anniversary of VE Day – even though the government has especially moved the day from Monday 4^th to the weekend commencing Friday 8^th May to encompass the anniversary date itself and the thousands of celebrations being organised.

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Despite impressions to the contrary, events in Boston borough are planned and organised and mostly financed by the town’s ‘parish council’ – otherwise known as BTAC-ky.

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The last meeting of the committee heard a report from Worst Street’s ‘Head of Place and Space’ (no, don’t laugh … imagine answering the question ‘so what do you do?’) which gave an update on plans for the coming financial year.

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So ambitious have these become that the committee agreed to stump up an extra £27,000 over and above the £40,000 budget allocated for events.

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As he boasted in his blog, whilst he was still a councillor, Alistair Arundel was happy to support the plans, saying: “The public perception of this town can often be judged on its events. Whilst we’ve had great events in the past, they can often linger on and become a bit of a legacy. I encouraged all members to support me in offering an additional £27k to the events budget.”

At a later point, he added: “I’m keen to help the Boston Bike Night Committee to develop, by increasing their volunteer numbers to assist with stewarding.”

We can understand that, as in his register of pecuniary interests he lists his role in organising Boston Bike Night at ‘100%.’

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Among the events that will be new to the town are a ‘Teenage Market’ – something we first suggested as long ago as 2016.

Sometime after that it fell into the arthritic hands of the ‘Preposterous (they named it Prosperous) Boston’ committee and then there was talk of a crowdfunding appeal to to try to raise £1,000 to stage an event until eventually it was declared that the idea had no support here.

Now, after all this time, ‘working with Lincoln University’ and paying £1,000 for the privilege, an event is at last on the agenda.

But why are we paying Lincoln University when we have a thriving and ambitious college on our doorstep.

Anyone care to answer?

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A new item in the pipeline is something called ‘Boston Show including Through the Ages’ which is committed for 2020 and set to cost £18,000.00, and the resurrection of a ‘Party in the Park’ costing £12,000.

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The report by HOPAS (there’s an acronym for him!) explains that the Christmas market and lights switch-on event was fully funded through the Controlling Migration Fund programme, which comes to an end this financial year.

“This event will add cost to the programme going forward and if the current BTAC budget was to be maintained the programme would have to be reduced for the 2020/21 financial year.”

This means that next year’s Christmas Market/Lights Switch on and Illuminate Parade will be funded by BTAC-ky to the tune of £14,500 – even though it is still claimed to be the work of ‘volunteers.’

That’s a lot of jingle bells!

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The point has been made that no one on BTAC-ky questioned how the figures were reached – and that none of the councillors present bothered to ask.

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This prompted a Freedom of Information request asking for a breakdown of how the cost of each event was arrived at.

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The answer was jaw-dropping.

It simply said: “With the exception of a payment to Lincoln University for £750 for their provision in the teenage market (it says £1,000 in the budget) we do not hold a detailed breakdown of the information requested.

“The reason being, the figure reported at the BTAC meeting was based on 2019 spend and is therefore a prediction for 2020/21.

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This is known in the trade as budgeting on the back of a fag packet.

But what the reply fails to acknowledge is that as least two events – the Boston Show and the Party in the Park, which between them will guzzle up £30,000, or the entire ‘extra’ money needed for the full budget list – have not been staged before … and therefore have no financial history from which to ‘predict.’

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Once upon a time, BTAC-ky existed for the betterment of the mostly poor wards that it represented.

Then it developed big ideas and ramped up its share of the council tax wrung from those people to create an annual budget of £700,000 – of which events now account for almost 10%.

Interestingly in what might be considered the good old days for council taxpayers, the BTAC precept requirement five years ago was £114,000 – and now includes countless thousands paying for the work once covered by the central budget.

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Not only has BTAC-ky failed in its original constitutional pledge, but things look set to get worse.

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According to HOPAS: “BTAC policy set in 2017/18 determined that the events programme for the 2019/20 financial year be focused on BTAC residents and the corresponding programme to date has generally comprised of a mix of community-based events that provide families with opportunities that may not otherwise be easily affordable …

“… Members of BTAC at its 20^th March 2019 [sic] suggested that going forward; the Committee should now try to take steps to hold major events in Boston that attract people from further afield.

“It was also reported that the current capacity within the Events Team was sufficient to deliver the 2019/20 programme; however, any ambition to expand the events programme further was likely to require additional resource …

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So, increasingly irrelevant spending now looks likely to end in at least one more expensive extra officer post – or perhaps more.

By a strange happenstance, dates are something of a feature this week …

A week ago, leader Aaron Spencer announced plans to meet his opposite number at Lincoln City Council to discuss problems cause by people urinating and defecating in the street.

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Barely had the ink dried on his tweet, when one of our local ‘news’ websites was trumpeting a cunning plan to tackle the problem.

Mr Spencer was quoted as saying that he was keen to find a permanent solution and has suggested open air urinals might be the best approach to tackle the problem.

He was quoted thus: “I know Paris has an issue with street urination in tourism hot spots and they've introduced a urinal in the street.

“The urinals have flowers on top of them so that they are somewhat discreet.”

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Councillor Spencer is a little adrift when it comes to the history of the pissoir.

Whilst he makes the Parisian solution sound to be relatively recent, the encyclopaedia tells us: “In the spring of 1830 the city government of Paris decided to install the first public urinals on the major boulevards.

“These structures served both as urinals and supports for posters and advertising. “They were put in place by the summer, but in July they were put to a completely different purpose; providing materials for street barricades during the French Revolution of 1830.”

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The idea has been tried over here – and among the councils to dabble in the pissoir business was Chester … which caused public outrage when these monstrosities were used experimentally some years ago.

Not only are they unsightly, but the idea attracted criticism from women – for obvious reasons.

Can you imagine a load of these dotted around the town centre?

No, nor can we.

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And a key point that Councillor Spencer is overlooking is that if people won’t use the toilets when they’re open round-the-clock, why would they use metal monstrosities like the ones above?

And if they trashed the 24/7 loos – won’t they find a big zinc box standing in the street an easy item to overturn.

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In recent weeks we have seen Worst Street councillors approve more money for the Mayor – whilst the First Citizen himself has been banging on about the importance of the role and how it should have even more power that the none that it has already.

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In the circumstances, ought it not to have been the case that the annual Mayor’s Sunday on October 13^th at Boston Stump should have been groaning at the pews beneath the combined weight of of the towns grate and good.

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But it seems that the date was unlucky for some – notably the mayor according to an account by Boston BiG spokesman Councillor Brian Rush.

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“There must have been a really, ‘big day’ somewhere in the Borough for Boston's 30 elected councillors,” he wrote on Facebook, “because this was 'The Mayor's Sunday', when Councillor. Anton Dani and his lovely wife Maria invited councillors, officers, and guests, to join him in respectful thanks and celebration, of his term of office, in our glorious St. Botolph's Church.

“Mayor’s Sunday is an established, annual part of the mayoral calendar, and is specifically local,” he reminded us before going on to say that just ten councillors joined the mayor for the event.

“No Leader, no Deputy Leader, and I believe only Councillor Martin Griggs as a cabinet member.

“I am bound to say that I was very disappointed, by how little support was shown by the majority of our elected members.

“Councillor Dani, in my view, bravely demonstrated a great level of respect for the historic traditions of our mayoralty, and our Borough, and is a credit to our administration.

“An official public apology is called for.”

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As one of our councillors might phrase it – you can’t have your cake and eat it – and it reeks of hypocrisy when councillors support a big pay rise for the mayor (presumably in the hope that one day their turn will come, as the role depends not on quality, but quantity of service) then can’t be bothered to support the traditions because it’s their day off.

Incidentally, whilst the event used to involve an element of public interaction, and the hoi-polloi would turn out to see a bit of a procession – not even the Worst Street website could be bothered to mention that it was going on.

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Ironically for Councillor Rush, he fell victim to the reverse situation during his mayoral year in 2017.

To try to cut down on the annual mayoral budget of £80,000 a year he staged a ‘Meet the Mayor’ event at the White Hart Hotel, and decided to foot the bill from his own pocket – rather than dump it on the council taxpayers.

Attendance was subject to pre-booking – and although 45 people asked to come along, 83 turned up!

As we said at the time, this perfectly demonstrated the ignorance and thoughtlessness of many of the self-styled great and good of Boston, who presumably thought that turning up unannounced didn’t matter as it was only the taxpaying punters who would have to take the hit.

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