Boston after dark -

"It depends how you look

at it"

says council leader

Yesterday we heard from Councillor Mike Gilbert after our comments regarding November’s planned protest march through Boston to highlight the impact of migration on the town.
We were so busy on Friday, that we missed another fascinating insight from council leader Peter Bedford on the Peter Levy Show on BBC Radio Lincolnshire.
Mr Levy does not sound comfortable during interviews like these – as though a wrongly pgrased question might get him into trouble with his Auntie.
He first played a chunk of a previous interview in which he gave the protest organiser Dean Everitt quite a hard time, compared with the comfier ride he gave Councillor Bedford.
Highlights– if they might be called that – of Councillor Bedford’s interview included the following …
• The issues being raised should be dealt with in Westminster or Brussels, not Boston.
• Migrants were great asset to farmers, who couldn’t operate without them these days. Q: British people don’t want to do these jobs, do they? In a lot of instances, no they don’t. Q: One farmer said that if they turned up he would take them. Is the problem with the British workers not wanting these jobs? “It seems to be perceived that the packhouse work and everything these days has become a migrant work job, and that’s totally wrong, because in the major packhouses around the Boston area there are still Boston people and, you know, should I say British people, working in those packhouses alongside the migrants. The skilled agricultural labour - in the main the tractor drivers and everybody else - are still English people. It’s a fact that our population have got to get used to the fact of starting to apply for such jobs again.”
• “As a council we don’t walk away from the fact that there is an awful lot of them come and we have to work around that. We are in talks with the Home Office and trying to get Boston classed as a special case because of the amount that have arrived. Hopefully, we will be able to make some announcement on that front shortly, but that is with the Home Office at this moment in time.”
• Q: Is the feeling that Boston doesn’t belong to Bostonians any more, and that they are outnumbered, a racist or a fair observation? “I think to a degree that is being racist.”
• “Mr Everitt talks about people not being able to go out at night in the town, well, that depends on your outlook. I walked through town with my wife on Saturday night after a concert in Boston Stump and everybody was well behaved. We never saw an issue at all. So it’s how you want to look at things.” Boston Eye says: Critics might say that Councillor Bedford’s stroll through town was a little early in the evening, which was why things seemed so peaceful. His concert began at 7pm and must have been over before 10pm. At that time of night the town’s clubbers haven't even hit the streets – but come back an hour or two later …. and how you look at things may be completely different.
• Q: Boston people feel as if their town has been taken away from them …Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday used the word’ swamped.’   I wouldn’t use the word swamped - we’ve got an awful lot - and I think that we’ve got to accept that they are here, they’re here to work. There is a certain element - obviously the same as our population – that don’t seem as though they want to work, or can’t get work but in the main, the majority of them are here to actually work and benefit themselves.
• Q: Is the town blossoming and benefiting from those numbers? In certain areas, yes. From the White Hart hotel in High Street all the way down to Haven Bridge and out to the old London Road, there were five years ago many, many empty boarded-up derelict shops. There’s only two now left. All the rest have been refurbed and opened mainly by the migrant community, so they are now paying their business rates and everything for the benefit of Boston.
• Q: Do you welcome the protest march?  No, because the last thing Boston needs is that type of thing, that type of march. If they want to march against a migrant population it should be at the powers that have the final say on that sort of thing, on immigration policy. But Boston has recovered from the town centre riot of about 2006 I think it was. We have recovered and we are forgetting that sort of thing and trying to build … Q: So the protest is a mistake …? I think so. Q: Are there now sufficient numbers here? Would you like to see more, or would you like to say we’ve got enough now? We have enough. There is no doubt about that. We have enough, but as the EU law is at this moment in time we have no say in the final numbers that arrive here.
• Q: Did the Hitchens article hit the nail on the head …? It didn’t do Boston any favours at all. In my mind he came with one mindset and that was just to put all the negatives in the paper and nothing which are positives.
Mention of the ripple effect of the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens brings us back to the starting point, and another issue which he raised in e-mails with Boston Eye after Councillor Bedford invited him to revisit Boston and hear from locals working to ease the problems caused by migration.
“I am slightly baffled as to what right or authority he has to invite me anywhere” said Peter Hitchens. “I am also puzzled as to what authority he has to make these comments. Does he - on this or any other matter - speak for the people of the town? Did they elect him to behave in this fashion? Do they wish him to continue to do so?”
Interesting.
So how much can a “leader” truly be considered to be speaking for the people of the borough whose council he controls?
At the May elections, Councillor Bedford was elected in the charmingly rural Coastal Ward - about as far away from the real Boston as you can get. The ward includes his home village of Freiston, plus Butterwick, Benington and Leverton. He polled 789 votes – 41.5% of the 1,903 total - which is a healthy figure, and well above the rest of the field, including his fellow Tory Raymond Singleton-McGuire, who received 426 votes.
But the total of votes cast in the election was 28,292 – so overall, Councillor Bedford's backers represented a drop in the ocean.
Subsequently, he was elected leader of his eighteen Tory group peers, who then voted to assure his place as leader of the council.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for someone who claims to speak for the borough, is it?
Not only that, but the Conservative election campaign was conducted under the leadership of Councillor Bedford’s Coastal Ward colleague, Councillor Singleton-McGuire, who subsequently – and inexplicably to many – then stepped aside.
Whilst people don’t vote presidentially in local elections in the way that they do at General Election time, the local outcome for some must have been equivalent to supporting David Cameron - then seeing Ann Widdecombe waltz out of the front door of 10 Downing Street!

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com  

Communities councillor

says "protest march

won't solve our

problems"

Last week’s to-ing and fro-ing over November’s proposed march protesting at the level of migration in Boston generated comments left, right, and centre – including from ourselves.
Last week’s piece headed “Talking without listening…” has brought a response from Councillor Mike Gilbert, Boston’s Portfolio Holder for Community Development – and therefore the man in the firing line when it comes to issues such as migration.
He writes:
“I thought I should comment on your recent views.
“I certainly don't comment for the sake of it simply to sound like a politician, I comment because I believe something needs to be said and I try and be balanced and objective; I don't want to stir up feelings one way or the other.
“I am very aware that we have some complex issues to deal with in Boston - and by Boston I mean the Boston communities and the Borough Council they have elected. “Like you, your commentators, and the Conservative administration, I am acutely aware that an influx of people into a small local community can cause anxiety, and clearly, as I have said in my comments, place a stress on scarce resources.
“We know this and as a council we do what we can to mitigate the more problematic issues associated with this - i.e. rough sleeping etc. We have to rely on partners like police and other public services to do their bit too. Migrants come here to work and there are three issues here:
1) European and British Law allows it
2) There is work - businesses will employ them
3) They want to take advantage of 2 and 3 above and who can blame them - after all Boston is a lovely town with good schools and a hospital, etc.
“Whilst I do very much sympathize with your commentators and the people who want to march in protest (I can empathize too as I live in the town centre in Tower Street) my comment on the march is this; do we want Boston to be seen as the hub of a campaign that really should be taking place in London or Brussels?
“We have migrants who are very much part of our community, and we need to ensure that relations remain harmonious even though we accept there are pressures on services.
“Other places have these pressures too - Hereford for example. We don't want inter community relations to deteriorate with the risk of making worse any tensions in our town.
“Finally, a couple of points about the economics of this situation.
“Firstly we do need migrants or someone to top up our local labour force.
“Some years ago some of this extra labour came from Sheffield or Nottinghamshire and was illegal. We had factories raided, etc.
“Now the migrants are here they need to live here as they can't simply get in a van and drive 50 miles up the road to go home.
“We do have people here who are not prepared to work on the land or in factories; someone has to do this work.
“Unfortunately 13 years of Labour government has persuaded people that this work is not good enough for them, and unfortunately it makes more sense to stay on the dole. “So in summary, it makes financial sense for the migrant communities to come here and it makes financial sense for unemployed locals to avoid the work the migrants do. “How is a march going to sort this out?
“What Boston as a town needs to do is get more resources - not more bad publicity."

Tomorrow: We look at Council Leader Peter Bedford's performance on last Friday's Peter Levy Show.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

The BBC's Lincolnshire news website was quick to report the decision to sell off or lease Boston’s Assembly Rooms to the private sector. It quoted Councillor Mike Gilbert, portfolio holder for housing, property and communities, as saying: "There is no way the town is going to be adversely affected by any commercial opportunities that the building offers. The building will still have pride of place in Boston market place, and perhaps will once again become the proud building it deserves to be." It’s a laudable ambition, and we hope that it will turn out to be the case, as any change to the look of the Assembly Rooms could have a huge impact on the appearance of the town, and must be a key consideration when any new use is proposed.
Strangely, the BBC website has not been as quick to cover the proposed march through Boston on 19th November, even though the event has been debated to death on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Look North.  More than that -  it has failed to mention it entirely. We wonder on what basis the people who write the corporation’s web pages decide an event  such as this is not worth even a line. An example of selective coverage, perhaps - such as another which you can find further down the page.

One reader who has commented on the coverage is Boston’s Robin Smith, who was transported in time by events of recent days. “Many years ago one of the regular variety acts on the old steam radio was a strange and very weird double act called Nat Mills and Bobby,” he writes, “who in their stage persona lived in a universe in which reality had no place. This long forgotten duo came to my mind after seeing Boston’s own double act of Bedford and Gilbert on TV and reading their various so-called statements in the press. The universe with no place for reality of Nat Mills and Bobby (pictured) now seems to be alive and well in Boston’s own Palace of Varieties.  The political establishment from the top down continues to abuse the local unemployed and young Boston people who, in the vast majority of cases, are desperate for any kind of paid work. Of course there is the inconvenient fact that a great many of them were once employed in the low paid agricultural sector as direct employees, but were, as they say, let go, and replaced by even lower paid agency staff. Just look at how the employers of agency staff are now squealing with horror now that they are supposed to pay agency workers the same as full time workers after 12 weeks. The farmers’ representative on earth, Roger Welberry, was on Radio Lincolnshire some time ago and to give credit where credit is due, was completely open and honest in what the local farmers and pack houses required. What they needed was a large pool of readily available labour to do “menial work" that the farmers can call on as and when required. There we have it - as and when required. So it seems that in this area many major employers don't want full employment for local people of all ethnicities - only agency staff as and when required. It would be very interesting to know from Worst Street what the cost to the taxpayer is of the huge subsidy that we are paying through housing benefit/rent rebate to help very low paid people pay the inflated rents charged in the town. It seems that various local employers are using the benefit system as an excuse for paying poverty wages with the taxpayer making up the shortfall. We don’t hear Nat Mills and Bobby worrying about that though do we?”
Once again, the borough council’s spending on items over £500 contains a couple of noteworthy invoices amongst the charges for August. The first is the payment of just over £4,000 to the Performing Right Society for music royalties at the Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre for the 12 months from April last year. That’s around £80 a week for muzak. We wonder how many people would notice if the speakers around the place stopped dribbling out this annoying stuff. Or – if it must be played – why doesn’t the borough source one of the many companies producing royalty free music? A penny saved is a penny earned.
The second item is a little more mysterious – the payment of £800 for the removal of 800 litres of sharps by the street cleansing service. "Sharps" waste is a form of medical waste, which includes any device or object used to puncture or lacerate the skin, and is classified as biohazardous. What are we seeing here? Surely not drug paraphernalia collected from the town’s streets. If anyone will tell us, we’d be grateful.
Whilst a bypass for Boston is unlikely ever to happen, it seems that Lincolnshire County Council is taking no chances when it comes to securing the bypass after next for Lincoln. Reports claim that almost £4 million of taxpayers' cash has been spent on houses and land to make way for Lincoln's southern bypass – despite no guarantee that it will happen. The future of the southern bypass depends on a successful county  council bid to the government for £50 million to build an eastern bypass. If that is approved it would open in 2016 or 2017 – and only then would a southern bypass become a possibility. Estimates suggest it would not be built until 2030 at the earliest. And they deny that there’s one law for Lincoln and another for Boston.
As we tottered down Petticoat Lane the other day we saw the dreary wall belonging to Marks and Spencer that lines the approach to the Market Place and had a brainwave. The old bricked up windows suggested themselves as frames that could house photos to promote the town.

click on photo to enlarge it

Whilst it is an incomplete and very rough impression - what do you think? It’s something that could be done for little cost – possibly even funded by the store itself as a goodwill contribution – and we believe it would be a great enhancement that locals and visitors alike would approve of. Several other lanes lend themselves to similar enhancements as well, by the way.
One of the last people we would have expected to read Boston Eye is borough councillor Paul Mould. But it seems that not only does he read it, he has pored over it closely enough to spot every recent little typographical error he can find in the 5,000 or so words we turn out each week - and written to the Boston Standard to mention them both. Once, a word was repeated, and another time, a stray letter crept into a word. Aside from being mind numbingly sad and petty, we trust that Councillor Mould is as assiduous in his attention to council duties, as this is perhaps the first utterance we can recall from the erudite but apparently reclusive Mr Mould. He also takes Boston Eye to task for its criticism of the council, but is confident that this will become “harder and harder over the next two years, as items of good news follow one after the other.” We look forward to the start of this joyful procession - and will be delighted to report it when it happens. One final point …. Councillor Mould is wrong to assert that we have never heard of the subjunctive tense. We had one for years – but the guy ropes snapped and it blew away one windy night.
Talking of letters to the local paper, an identical missive sent to both the Boston Target and Boston Standard appears in this week’s editions. It was written by local activist Darron Abbott, a Boston businessman and former borough council candidate. Aside from one of two minor alterations to conform to individual style, there were some notable, but interesting, omissions in one of the letters. A meld of the two appears below, with the differences between the versions marked.
The appropriately coloured highlights were published in one paper but not the other – can you say which is which?

click on image to enlarge it

The sections highlighted in yellow were omitted by the Standard. In general terms, the excised words were critical of the police and the borough council. What does this tell us about the fearlessness of the Standard’s journalism? Answers on a postcard, please.
A grand opportunity to celebrate National Personal Safety Day this coming Monday is with a visit to Boston’s hugely powerful and sophisticated 72-camera CCTV system. Whilst it’s described as an open day, it strikes us as an odd choice of phrase - as visits are by appointment only. However, we can offer some help for anyone devastated by not being able to attend. The thrust of this year’s event is to raise awareness of the “simple, practical solutions that everyone can use to help avoid violence and aggression.” It’s called running away!
We note that having been thwarted in its plan to blow £10,000 of Boston Business Improvement District levy payers’ cash on an open air concert, the BID is now chipping in an identical amount towards the town’s new Christmas lights – to boost the borough council’s £25,000 contribution. Presumably there has been a change of heart somewhere, as the council and BID had apparently agreed that the idea was best put on hold this year because of the Market Place refurbishments. We wonder what the businesses in the town will think about this – especially as the cancelled concert is still on the cards for next year, and will cost them another £10,000. Meanwhile, the refurbishment is continuing to jeopardise local firms. The latest to be affected is Savers, where staff are said to  fear for their jobs after a slump in turnover. But not to worry – no-one else is. Lincolnshire County Council insists it is doing all it can to minimise the impact on businesses – despite the clear evidence that its efforts are not working.
Meanwhile, the BID appears to be as on the ball as ever, with this announcement on its website, pictured below …

click to enlarge

Anyone thinking of nominating someone or applying for the Boston Business awards needed to move quickly – unlike the BID, which left it until the day before entries closed to tell their members about it.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Task of the old grey mayor won't be what it used to be!

Yesterday’s meeting of Boston Borough Council’s cabinet had only two items on the agenda.
One – which we have already mentioned - was the disposal of the town’s Assembly Rooms, because there isn’t the money to paint them.
Ironically, the only other item on the agenda was a review of civic and mayoral spending, to see if the cost could be cut by as much as 30% to mirror the cut in government grants.
But whereas item one on the agenda seemed a foregone conclusion, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth at cutting the cost of what we suspect is a role that is largely appreciated by councillors themselves and regarded less than enthusiastically by the public at large.
There was a time – and we can remember it – when a visit by the mayor was a big deal, but we would question whether this is still the case.
Historically the role was once one of great importance – but it is now ceremonial – and expensive.
In the current year, the cost is £80,000, and even a 30% cut would reduce it to £56,000 – still more than £1,000 a week.
And for what?
There are nine main events in the mayor’s annual calendar – two of which are “important acts of remembrance” in the form of Battle of Britain Sunday and Remembrance Sunday, and which could cost up to £5,000 each – as figures are not disclosed, and have to be averaged from the balance after actual costs that have been given are taken into account.
In any case, the recommendation from the Scrutiny Committee to the cabinet is to rob Peter to pay Paul by excluding these figures from the budget – thereby effecting a notional saving to the mayoral budget at a stroke.
Looking through the remainder of the list, many events are merely staged by the mayor to make the mayor look good –such as a church service to bless their forthcoming year in office followed by a lunch – costing around £2,500.
The Scrutiny Committee has made some wild assumptions in its assessment of the situation – including the memorable line “cuts might make the public feel that the borough had no future.”
Would that be the same borough that is disappearing beneath mountains of litter – including cans and bottles casually dropped by street drinkers (in areas where this is allegedly illegal) - which is defaced by graffiti; forever being dug up and rebuilt in the name of jam tomorrow - whilst local business go to the wall?
Would that be the same borough whose council ignores the haplessness of some of its members, as well as organisations such as the useless Business Improvement District?
That would be the one!
The report also expresses the belief that it was important that the “standing” of the mayor was not diminished, “as tradition was important for future generations.”
The committee also claims that “The role of the mayor was prestigious and well-respected and concerned civic pride; if the role was diminished it would be better not to have it at all.”
We suspect that the reality is that the office of mayor means little or nothing to the majority of today’s residents of the borough, and that what significance the role has will continue to diminish over time.
If that is the case, it would be better to abolish it now on something of a high, rather than see it totter along with ever decreasing resources until it ends in a whimper and rattle of chains – a bit like Marley’s ghost.
The fact is that the office costs as much as it does because the office exists. If it didn’t, any truly essential functions and events could still take place under the aegis of the council at a fraction of the cost.
There is also the point that in this day and age the real benefit of the office is for councillors.
The role used to recognise and reward service to the community by appointing an incumbent whom electors had returned year in, year out - and to whom the office was given as an honour.
But since the electoral routs of 2007 and 2011, when first the Bypass Independents swept away most of the long standing councillors - and changed the mayoral selection process as well - and then the Tories reduced the BBI to a sad rump, a vast swathe of our councillors are newly elected.
A decision to revert to the former mayoral selection process based on length of service – including any previous period in office - means that next year’s candidate at present has just over six years interrupted service, and his successor presently has a little over four.
It’s scarcely anything much to write home about, as there are doubtless many more people who have been giving voluntary public service to the Boston community for far longer periods whose contributions go unrecognised.
It seems to us that we have reached an almost irresistible point in the office of Mayor of Boston.
It costs too much.
To trim the budget will diminish the role to a point where it may well become a civic joke.
It no longer enjoys the public esteem that it once did, and it not longer recognises significant contributions of public service.
On a set of scales, the argument tips inexorably towards abolishing the post altogether.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com   Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Talking without listening ...

What is remarkable about Boston Borough Council Leader Peter Bedford’s statement on the planned protest march about the level of migration in Boston, is not that he almost avoided mentioning it at all - but that he failed to choke on the sand in which his head  was apparently so deeply buried.
We accept that this is a contentious issue – as on previous occasions when we have blogged about it, reaction has been either to agree wholeheartedly or to send offensive e-mails branding us as racist.
Unfortunately for Councillor Bedford, and his cabinet crony Mike Gilbert – who for his sins holds the poisoned chalice of portfolio holder for community development – they are determined to be seen as what they consider to be politicians, and pronounce accordingly.
Councillor Bedford’s contribution to the debate was to tell us what it was he never said**  
He had never said that the increase in Boston borough’s population by the appearance of migrant workers had not presented the council with challenges.
EU citizens had a legal right to be here, and they came to work. Boston Borough Council worked hard to deal with the issues their presence generated. A minority presented difficulties. Councillor Bedford had met our MP, Mark Simmonds, to discuss immigration and the impact on Boston, and the council continued to press the government for more resources.
Councillor Gilbert played Little Sir Echo to his leader.
Individuals had a right to be here and, with only a few exceptions, made a positive contribution to the town - which had experienced waves of migration over the last 700 years.
The pressure on resources was real, and affected us all and - in the face of national and European policies - the council did what it could to ensure the government had the facts about Boston.
See what we mean – two archetypal political responses – heads in the sand,  answering without listening, voices coming from … who knows where?
There is no attempt to empathise with local feeling.
We believe that most people in Boston agree that our new arrivals are hard working and pull their weight in terms of the contribution that they make.
Unfortunately, those that are not and do not, make their presence felt more emphatically than those who do.
What the politicians cannot seem to understand is that people who have spent their lives in Boston are finding it hard to come to terms with the pace of change that has occurred in the past few years.
The arrivals from Europe have come at a speed and in a volume that has often left locals bewildered and scared.
This is not a wave of migration – it is a tsunami!
Obviously, more resources would help, as it has already been said that such a sudden and vast increase in the local population has stretched resources such as health care, housing, benefits and education.
But what politicians seem unwilling to accept – or choose to ignore – is the cultural aspect of all this.
Boston has always been a relatively isolated, and therefore a close-knit community, and consideration has to be given to this.
Try as they might, councils and government cannot change deep seated, almost hereditary attitudes amongst local people overnight.
Nor should they confuse what are often inarticulately-expressed emotions with charges that the proponents are intolerant or racist.
Granted, some of the language  we are seeing is forthright  colloquial Bostonian, but reading between the lines, many people are expressing genuine fears, and  asking questions which if properly answered would do much to ease tensions.
And don't forget for every one who takes the time to contribute to something like a Facebook page, a dozen more may well feel the same but do not  or cannot add their three penn'orth.
Some sympathy might help if nothing else, but it seems as if it will not be forthcoming from the government, as Boston Borough Council may have hoped.
When the migration protest featured on BBC TV’s Look North on Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron was asked if he sympathised with the concerns of some residents.
“There are a lot of jobs that are done in Lincolnshire that people come over from Europe to do that frankly, British people can, could and should do,” he said. “We are reforming welfare so that it’s no longer going to be an option to sit on the dole when there’s work available for you. So if we want to try to reduce the level of migration into Britain from Europe - then do it by getting British people into those jobs.”
Thanks, Prime Minister – for holding out the dismal prospect of jobs on the land for all as the best he can offer the people of Boston.
Have a piece of cake while you’re about it.
Meanwhile, the Facebook page Boston Protest March – which had 1,641 members when we mentioned it on Friday, had 2,538 at 5-30am ... and with the march not due to take place until Saturday 19th November, who can say what sort of following it might have amassed by then?


** See the Clevinger court martial scene in Catch-22, chapter 8 "Lieutenant Scheisskopf" - p88 Corgi paperback edition.

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Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Pretty in pink ... how Boston's Club Assembly might look ...

After years of indecision, it looks as though Boston Borough Council is about to dump the town’s historic Assembly Rooms on a private operator.
The reason is that this fine example of Regency architecture, which was completed in 1822, is now in such a state that the council can’t afford to carry out much needed and significant repair and maintenance works.
The reason, of course, is that instead of carrying out maintenances on a regular basis over time – in affordable chunks – the borough has regarded the task as a single project, which was therefore always beyond the reach of the budget.
Had it structured a plan for the building, it would today still resemble the gleaming confection which is so hilariously still used by the council on its website.
In budgetary terms, the figures are not really that horrendous.
It’s estimated that £150,000 needs to be spent to repair and re-decorate the outside of the Rooms, with an un-assessed amount to improve the public rooms.
Given the cost, the answer in council-speak is “to devolve the council’s ongoing financial liability by offering the Assembly Rooms to the market for outright purchase, leasehold sale or lease."
In other words, get rid of it.
A report for tomorrow’s meeting of Boston’s Cabinet says that various options for the Assembly Rooms have been considered in recent years and they have been advertised nationally with previous interest being shown, At that time, councillors did not consider the use of the upper floor as a nightclub was appropriate.
However, all that might change, as the council has been told that the best potential returns from any deal would be made on the basis that any relevant permissions could be secured and that the council itself will not place any restrictions on the future use of the asset - outside of those which could be imposed through normal processes, such as change of use planning permissions, building regulation consents, listed building consent and the like.
So, the wording seems to suggest that Club Assembly might not be ruled out.
But how about the colour?
White is very difficult to keep looking good and is a tad prosaic for a nightclub.
So how about a pink version - like the one at the top of the page? Or blue (right.) Our photo impressions speak for themselves – but we would hope that listed building consent rules might have something to say about that!Meanwhile, options for the disposal of the Assembly Rooms could include a freehold sale, a leasehold sale for a term between 85 and 125 years, or a long lease of “the entire asset” – including the public toilets.
Redecoration of the exterior of the rooms would be a given – and  pricing would reflect this condition.
Although the Assembly Rooms are nothing to write home about, they do form a prominent piece of the heritage that our councillors are forever banging on about, and one thing is almost certain – if the building moves into private hands, its appearance will change -  and let us not forget that it is a prominent landmark in the townscape and features in the majority of photographs which are seen worldwide - such as the view on the left.
What a shame that – not for the first time, and probably not for the last – Boston Borough Council has been so neglectful of its history.
But selling off the family silver seems to be its only answer these days.
Already, we have seen the Peter Paine Sports Centre gifted to Boston College for a piffling rent, which has  freed the college to close and dispose of the De Montfort Campus – presumably at something of a profit.
Then of course there is the Moulder Training Pool deal, which - whilst not a disposal of assets - is a redirection of a major part of the facility for use by a select fee paying group.
And what of the PRSA – the council’s major asset, valued last year at more than £11 million - will it continue to be a bottomless pit for borough council investment?
Boston Borough Council is supposed to be ending PRSA funding – but as we warned the other day, since the stadium “won” a two-week booking from the Egyptian paralympics team a year from now – which is beyond the period when it was told it could no longer  expect to enjoy more taxpayer cash – it is hard to see the council refusing extra money if the sledgehammer of bad publicity is used to persuade it.
We can even hear the council justifying it already ...

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Access to our old blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com/

BBC – the

Big Brother

council

With more than a hint of delusions de grandeur, Boston Borough Council refers to itself as “BBC” in internal documents and e-mails.
It makes our tiny, insignificant local council sound so much more important - but recently we feel that the abbreviation might also stand for Big Brother Council – given the menacing overtones of many recent communications to the public.
The latest edition of the borough’s electronic bulletin, which appeared on Friday – proclaims: “There will be no hiding place for any who spoil the streets of Boston.
The borough council is determined to take a pro-active approach to all cases of littering and graffiti vandalism. It has turned the might of its hugely powerful and sophisticated 72-camera CCTV system against those who wilfully throw down litter and who fail to clean up after their pets.
"And now the council has teamed up with the police, schools and colleges to track down idiots who plastered Boston with an eyesore epidemic of around 100 pieces of graffiti.”
For the borough to adopt a tough stance towards its delinquent citizens is entirely proper - although the braggartly description of the huge power and might of its sophisticated CCTV sounds almost comic in light of the fact that no fewer than one hundred graffitti attacks have apparently already gone unnoticed.
Now turn to the previous edition of the borough bulletin.
“Litter louts – we’re watching you” screams the banner headline - which threatens …
“Eagle-eyed CCTV staff will, in addition to their usual duties, be spotting litter louts.
“And, as part of an innovative project, those litter bugs caught by one of the
borough’s 72 CCTV cameras who cannot be identified by the council or the police
will appear in a name-and-shame feature in the Boston Standard.”
This is an old stunt, recycled by our green council and local “newspaper” and whilst it may well reduce littering pro tempore, again, it has a rather sinister feel. Not only that, but it does not name and shame  anyone at all - it simply publishes their grainy photo and asks the public to do the rest.
And of course, it closes the stable door after the horse has littered - as does so much CCTV enforcement. How much better would it be if a police or council presence on the streets were to act as a deterrent?
Now take a look through the council website - where threatening stories litter almost every page.
• “Your waste: Your responsibility. Waste cowboys could land you with a fine and a criminal record by illegally fly-tipping your waste….”
• “Don't get caught without a TV licence. Did you know that you can be fined up to £1,000 if you are caught watching TV without a licence?
• “£75 fine for dropping a cigarette end. Thoughtlessly toss a cigarette end to the ground and, if it hasn’t started a grass fire, the filter tip will still be there when you pass that way in ten years' time.”
• Do you live in East Lindsey or the Borough of Boston? If so the East Lincolnshire Community Safety Partnership wants to hear your views on crime and anti-social behaviour.
All of this is well and good in that the messages need to be put across – but presenting them in such a relentlessly threatening manner can become oppressive and unsettling.
What next: “Breathe out with care – air pollution is an offence for which you can be fined ….”
It seems almost as if the council is looking for something to threaten us with these days – and at least one of the issues mentioned above is not a local authority responsibility.
But if it must be done, could it not be done more positively to encourage us to become participants in better group behaviour – rather than isolating and threatening us?
Which brings us to another thing.
We’ve lost count of how often we have been invited to complete the borough council's Hate Crime Survey.
We can only assume that not enough people yet feel hated, and that this document will appear repeatedly until they do.
To encourage us, the borough says: “A hate crime or incident is any crime or incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's actual or perceived social group or groups.”
The definition is wide enough to encompass almost anything, but although the survey contains 19 questions, only seven  truly relate to the topic.
1. Have you, or a person you know, experienced a hate crime or incident?
2. If ‘yes’ … what type of hate crime were you a victim of?
3. Did you tell anybody about it?
4. If ‘no’ … why not?
5. How would you feel most comfortable reporting hate crime?
6. What could improve the way the council and police tackle hate crime?
7. Have you heard about the Stop Hate Crime 24 Hour Help Line?
Well, answers to that lot will advance matters considerably, won’t they?
Then follows the usual Getting to Know You nonsense …
“We want to provide great services to everyone and it would really help if you could give us some information about yourself.”
Information such as: Have you ever identified as transgender; your sexual orientation (choice of four, plus other;) religion (choice of seven) and disability which offers a choice of six – plus “other (for example, disfigurement”.)
Whilst answers to these questions are voluntary, they still seem strangely inappropriate.
And a national newspaper reported last month that town hall sex snoopers had been banned from bombarding people with intrusive questions about their private lives.
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles was appalled that residents using basic services were being grilled about their sex lives, disabilities, religion, ethnicity and employment.
“At a time when taxpayers are watching their pennies, the last thing councils should be doing is sending out unnecessary and intrusive questionnaires,’ he said.
“Local residents shouldn’t be asked to reveal detailed personal information just because they’ve enquired about getting their bins emptied or how to join their local library.
“Clamping down on such town hall activity will save taxpayers’ money and protect the privacy of residents of all backgrounds.’
Perhaps someone at The BBC could tell us what happens to the information once it is received – and precisely why they need to know it.

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Our former blog archive is available at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com