So who's paying for mediation visit?

It came as no surprise to learn that non-Conservative Boston borough councillors did not know - because they were not told - that a Home Office team was in town last week to discuss issues arising from the now postponed Boston protest march.

Instead, they read it in Boston Eye, and we read about it on the protest marchers’ Facebook page.
When tackled about this failure to share information, Boston Borough Council employed  its usual line, which is to deny everything – as they did last week with the Market Place meeting.
Whilst there was no denial that the Home Office gabfest happened, our mention of a meeting this week between the march leaders and an organisation called the Centre for Good Relations,  produced the response that the council was unaware of such a meeting and that Boston Eye was misinformed.
However, according to the march organisers, the meeting was “set up” by the council - “to establish people’s concerns.”
“They will then take all the info and questions and put these to the right people, hopefully getting us the answers we need. It’s just another step on a path on the way to sorting Boston’s migration problems out.”
We understand that the group will be meeting a lady named Sam Tedcastle - a former managing director of something called Participation Works, who was also listed as Commissioner on Integration and Cohesion a couple of years ago at a conference jointly staged by the British Council and something called  iCoCo  - (yes, really … not “I should coco”) - the Institute of Community Cohesion.
The Participation Works website is currently suspended, so we do not know whether it is still in business – but it was last year, when the website Openly Local reported that it charged Burnley Borough Council almost £50,000 for its services.
Therefore, it comes as a relief to learn that – since Boston Borough Council has nothing to do with this meeting – there will presumably be no bill to pay … although the borough is not a stranger to stumping up big money for such services.
A couple of years ago it commissioned a £10,000 study by the selfsame Centre for Good Relations for “a scoping assessment” to apply their working methods to Boston “to try to improve cohesion issues in the town.”  
The brief included developing an understanding of current relationships in Boston that impact on cohesion: identifying cohesion issues to do with the presence and impact of migrant workers; developing recommendations for strengthening existing approaches, and putting in place new approaches so that agencies could improve engagement with ‘hard to reach’ members of the community -  and finally to develop recommendations for a “set of interventions” which would support the building of better relations in and around Boston on issues of cohesion and migrant workers.
A big - and expensive - job.
But the outcome is anyone’s guess, and there are no signs that anything was done apart from a couple of desultory mentions in the minutes of the Boston Area Partnership last year.
At least two Boston borough councillors have told the protest march group what they think about this week’s meeting in no uncertain terms.
English Democrat Councillor Elliott Fountain has made several posts to the group’s Facebook page, and in one of them says: “Do you not see you are being given the run around?  I have also been asked to meet them this week, but I have met this group before and showed them many areas of town and the problems with houses and schools and parking. Do you know what got done?  Nil, zilch, zero, nothing. The only people who can change this town are the council and the police, but they must have the willingness to do this. People say that talks must take place and meetings must take place - well there are at least 50 meetings a year inside the council and all they do is talk, I don’t see anything getting resolved or action being taken, The Boston Protest March has been fobbed off and the bigwigs of Boston can go back to their nice cosy houses and keep denying that there are problems in Boston, while the normal working class folk and pensioners of this once great town will just watch it slide down the pan.”
Councillor Fountain’s colleague David Owens agreed.  “I had a meeting with these people years ago when first elected. It’s just another talking shop and nothing gets done … meanwhile the wheels keep rolling and nothing changes! As for the Burnley outcome, well when you dig deeper into what these people have actually achieved up there, it is all talk, the big divide is still there and growing.”
Meanwhile whatever happens, we are in for a long wait. The Home Office will doubtless take several months before it has anything to say - and the same is likely with the Centre for Good Relations, which will probably want lots more meetings.
That leaves the borough council's Task and Finish group as the piggy in the middle. These committees usually work to a fairly short timescale, and this ought to be the case anyway, given the pressures and high level of feelings involved. But the group will surely not want to say anything until after the Home Office has spoken - and probably not until after the Centere has had its say as well.
Anyone hoping for ideas within a sensible time frame should prepared for disappointment.

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Mark his words: it's cauli-cutting for you ... unless your other half works at the Pilgrim

There were plenty of questions for Boston MP Mark Simmonds when he guested on a BBC Radio Lincolnshire phone-in last Friday – and there might have been more had the punters been able actually to speak to him.

The latest damning report on the Pilgrim Hospital, lack of jobs for locals, no drinking zones, immigration, fuel poverty, and traffic problems were among the host of issues raised.
But despite being billed as a “phone-in” not a single caller was heard on air. Instead their questions were read out to the MP – which means that he also most likely had a heads-up on them as well.
No-one likes surprises, least of all politicians – but the absence of real people from the programme gave the whole thing a remote, lifeless feel.
We won’t burden you with a blow-by-blow account of the show**
However, a handful of items did stand out that made us worry about our MP’s perception of his constituents.
The first involved the lack of jobs for locals. During his answer, Mr Simmonds declared: “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.”
Later on he added: “Of course, one of the reasons why there’s been such a significant migrant population in the Boston area working in the agricultural and horticultural sectors is not just - but partly because - a proportion of the local population don’t or won’t do that work any more.”
We’ve heard this argument repeatedly – and again on BBC Radio Lincolnshire … from Boston Borough Council leader Peter Bedford.
His argument over jobs was that: “It’s the fact that our population have got to get used to the fact of starting to apply for such jobs (in the packhouses) again.”
We said at the time what a pity it was that Councillor Bedford did not consider that local people deserved better educational opportunities – and we would say the same to Mr Simmonds.
The University and College Union  recently rated the 632 parliamentary constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales according to the percentage of  people between 16 and 64 who had no qualifications – and placed Mr Simmonds’s constituency 17th in the bottom twenty – with 22% having no qualifications.
Frankly, it is appalling that two major political figures "representing"  Boston apparently feel that the employment horizon  for our young people should be  a lifetime in the inhospitable fields – and a retirement age that will advance progressively over time.
Strangely enough, Mr Simmonds’s attitude to employment availability was quite different when he was asked how we might retain staff at the Pilgrim Hospital. 
“I would say we have to find ways of diversifying the economic base,” he replied, “because often people who might work at the hospital tend to be married or have a partner who is of a similar level to themselves, and there’s not necessarily - unless you are in healthcare or in education - anything for you to do in employment terms.”
So – if you’re local, it’s the fields and packhouses – but if you are of a better “level” then there should be better jobs for you to enjoy.
Another eye-opener with regard to local employment concerned the oft-repeated charge that “Eastern Europeans work harder than the English”   -  a concept that Mr Simmonds appears to embrace.
He told his audience that behind the scenes he had encouraged local employers, where possible, to employ local people who were keen and able to work.
“But I have to say to you that often employers say back to me -  it’s nothing to do with cost. It’s the fact that after one 12-hour shift, the Eastern European worker is keen and enthusiastic to do another back to back 12 hour shift, whereas too many of the British workers, I’m afraid, after 45 minutes, want to have a break, a cup of tea and a cigarette outside - and it’s that comparison that the employer has to decide upon.”
We hope that Mr Simmonds is not advocating 24-hour working days as some sort of norm - because we are sure that employment law, and health and safety rules have something to say about the kind of Victorian work ethic that he apparently regards so highly.
For a man who clearly wishes to find a silver lining in every cloud, it was also enlightening  to hear another of his answers concerning migration.
Asked if the influx of migrants had created extra patients - and therefore made the Pilgrim Hospital so busy that it couldn’t cope - he agreed that there was an element of truth in that – but there were positive aspects as well.
“If you look at the number of children who are being born in the maternity unit, a significant number of those are children to people who we euphemistically call migrants, and there has certainly been a debate about whether the maternity unit would still be open at Pilgrim Hospital if it wasn’t for these additional people coming and using the facilities and services.”
We are not entirely sure that this is an answer that many concerned Bostonians who worry about the levels of migration to the town would welcome.
Which brings us to the Boston Protest March.
Again, Mr Simmonds was involved “behind the scenes” -  his role apparently being “trying to ensure that the correct decision was made” - which we interpret as ensuring that it did not go ahead.
He said that the people who organised the march behaved very responsibly by postponing it.
“What we don’t want to have in Boston is to suck in right-wing extremists, and therefore have the counter demonstrations that will inevitably go with that to give to the rest of the UK the wrong impression about the people of Boston.
“There is an issue, and we need to address the issue - but in calm, civilised, mature way.  And I think that the people who initiated the march have done that and that needs to be said.”

** If you want to hear the "phone-in" in full, there are still three days left to listen on the BBC iPlayer, and you can find the programme by clicking here. The “phone-in” took place in the first hour of the programme.

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Psst! - don't let on, but the Home Office has been and gone ...

The Men from the Ministry came and went on Friday, and their visit was marked in the usual way by  our open and transparent Boston Borough Council – with no information before, during or after the event.

But news gets around in any case, and we hear that from the point of view of the Boston Protest March organisers, it went really well.
Dean Everitt, the man who thought the whole thing up, told supporters on their Facebook webpage: “I think I managed to give them some insight as to what life in Boston has become like for local people in the last 10 years.
"Now, we need to get this task and finish group sorted and get the problems of Boston sorted ASAP.”
It seems there’s a busy week ahead for the protest group.
A meeting with Boston MP Mark Simmonds has been mentioned, and about 50 volunteers are also being sought to attend a meeting on Thursday between 6.30pm and 8.30pm “to discuss the problems of migration in Boston … aimed at giving a bit more insight to the local council” with the promise that attendees will have “your chance to have your say as you see it.”
By all accounts the meeting is being organised by something called the Centre for Good Relations, who are apparently helping Boston Borough Council out - and the opinions gathered will again be used to inform the council’s task and finish group.

The centre is a not for profit company based in the North West – whose core work is “civic mediation,”  and prides itself on  its “strong link” to the Belfast-based Mediation Northern Ireland.
"Civic mediation"  is more fully defined as “facilitation and dialogue, working through issues of contention and dispute, and addressing social conflicts and tensions.
“We work with people positively on matters of contention, taking them through dialogue processes which unpack issues and tensions. Good relations work creates space for people themselves to work towards positive outcomes.
“Our contribution can:
“Build understanding between groups and communities that are at odds with each other...
“Help develop agreements between agencies, elected representatives, community members and others...
“Address polarising behaviour...
“Work around conflicts, campaigns and disputes over business developments...
“Explore community dynamics resulting from changing demography; bring parties together who are in dispute over the control of facilities and initiatives ...”
Without prejudgment,  we would suggest that they will have their work cut out for them, and that if they can solve Boston’s issues, they can solve anything.
Already one or two sceptics involved with the protest march doubt the value of  such meetings …
One said – though not quite in these words  - “they (the politicians) have already got the answers to every question you’re going to ask, because they are clever with political claptrap! The only time they were worried was when there was a threat of a protest march! Bring back the march! People of Boston had even Westminster scuttling about!”
Organiser Dean Everitt replied: “A march in Boston won’t solve the issues. We would have only got talks and that’s if it had stayed peaceful. There’s a bigger picture that needs looking, at and it’s a nationwide one”
However, he does agree that nothing has happened  since the meeting with local police, who promised to address various issues.
“Yes, the police seem to have ignored the problems so far,” he writes.  “But I will be putting pressure on the police again to sort this out, and if these talks lead to nowhere we can say we’ve tried the right way first - and the march is still on the back burner simmering.”
It’s not clear whether Thursday’s meeting will include Mark Simmonds, or whether he will attend a separate session. We think that the latter is most likely. MPs usually only surface in their constituencies on Friday for the weekend, and we also suspect that he doesn’t do crowds.
Last Friday Mr Simmonds was the guest on a BBC Radio Lincolnshire “phone-in” – which raised some interesting issues – including the protest march – and also gave some interesting insights into how our MP appears to regard his constituents….
More on that in tomorrow’s blog.

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

We remain confused as to whether or not Boston Borough Council was a willing player in Wednesday’s “partners” meeting to discuss the progress of the Market Place refurbishment. Readers will recall that after criticism in Tuesday’s Boston Eye of the short notice for the meeting, Boston Borough Council declared that it was nothing to do with them, and that the whole shebang had been organised by Lincolnshire County Council. But a last-minute entry on the Boston Business Improvement District website declared: “This is a follow-up meeting to that held on Thursday 15th September when various issues were raised by local businesses. The project partners, Lincolnshire County Council, Boston Borough Council and Ringway agreed to look at the issues raised and promised to hold a further meeting to review the project’s progress and to address the concerns raised.” A similar story appears on the borough council website. “The project partners are due to hold one of their regular meetings with businesses to discuss the construction phase of the project. The meeting will be attended by representatives from the county and borough councils, Boston Business Improvement District together with the contractor, Ringway Infrastructure Services.” We wonder who represented the council in the end. The two who most mattered were Leader Peter Bedford - who was out of town - and the cabinet town centre su-pre-mo Councillor Derek Richmond - who also had another engagement, but promised to grace the meeting with a 30-minute guest appearance. At worst it appears that Lincolnshire County Council organised the meeting without informing Boston Borough Council. At best it may be that LCC called the meeting and then told Boston as some sort of afterthought - and caught people napping. Either way, Boston needs to wake up and become properly engaged in the vitally important project.
It’s been a while since last we looked at the list of councillors’ attendances at meetings. While most of them still attend all lessons – even though in many cases we wonder why, as they apparently play no part when they do  - the place at the bottom of the list … previously held by Conservative Aaron Spencer, Boston’s youngest councillor … has changed. The new entry is English Democrat Leader David Owens, who failed to attend six meetings in the past three months,and also failed to send apologies. He tells Boston Eye: “It is unfortunate that I have been unable to attend several meetings of late. This is entirely due to a career change that has drawn all my energies for the last few months. Clearly this is most unfortunate and indeed, not planned. However, the project is nearing completion, and once again I intend to be fully involved in my local council work.” In our e-mail to Councillor Owens, we had asked whether his absence was some form of protest – as we had heard rumours to that effect. But his response was clear. “As for protest at meetings, I am afraid to say that from the meetings I have attended it appears we have simply changed the name of the ruling group and the fiasco continues to leave non-cabinet members totally disengaged and out of the loop, with no influence or impact on any matter the ruling party decide to impose.”

click photo to enlarge

The extent to which the police are withdrawing their service from Boston continues to emerge . They no longer deal with illegal parking, are seldom seen on the streets, and most recently have rewritten our perceptions of their role in controlling anti-social drinking in the town. But we were concerned to come across what appears to be the introduction of two-tier policing, in the form of a “new service”  The item on the right appears in the autumn issue of Boston Mayflower’s newsletter, and tells us: “A new service has been launched following consultation with residents. We recognise not all anti-social behaviour (ASB) occurs while our offices are open, so from 1st October, Mayflower’s residents can report any incidents of ASB outside of office hours by calling 01205 351830. The service sounds to be a real Rolls-Royce -  promising to answer calls within ten seconds, ensure a member of the area team gets in touch the next working day if follow-up action is required, and, amongst other things, allows third party reporting on behalf of Mayflower's residents.What great news if you happen to be a resident of Mayflower – your get own personal police service. But what are the implications for those of us who live elsewhere?  Could it be an even further reduced service?
A visit to the Boston Protest March Facebook page since matters have calmed, discloses the news that a meeting has been arranged with Boston MP Mark Simmonds any time now -to discuss the effects of immigration on Boston. Hopefully this means that he has changed his tune about talking to the hoi-polloi who elected him. Only three weeks ago a local “newspaper” request for a comment about the march, received the reply: “This is an extremely sensitive issue, and Mr Simmonds is in conversations with both Boston Borough Council and Lincolnshire Police.” That was polspeak for b***er off, in case you didn’t know.
With every week that passes, we find ourselves wondering increasingly where Mr Simmonds is coming from. With so many vital local issues demanding his attention, his latest big idea to enhance the lives of his constituents is to lobby the 2012 Olympics Authority to try to get the Olympic torch to visit the constituency. The torch will be in Lincoln overnight on June 27th,  and Mr Simmonds has declared his determination to ensure that people living in Boston and Skegness have an opportunity to engage with it. "To succeed in having the torch come through our part of Lincolnshire would be a very positive beginning to the main Olympic event next year," he says. In what way, pray tell.
Meanwhile, the pro-Tory Boston Standard has given Mr Simmonds a chance to clarify why, even though he “fully understands” our concerns about the UK’s relationship with Europe, and admits that membership now means something entirely different than it did in 1975 (when he was 11 years old,) he voted against a referendum on membership … even though he favours such a vote. Cynics might argue that it boils down to doing what the Tory whips tell him, and then smoothly to explain it away. After all, we are  mere yokels in a brute and beastly shire,  who clearly cannot appreciate grown-up politics. The Standard accorded Mr Simmonds guest columnist status – which he used to re-run one chunk of his explanation from last week’s paper. Still, it saves time - and, after all, time is money.
Elsewhere, the Standard reports what Boston Eye readers were told some weeks ago – that Mr Simmonds earned a mention in the satirical magazine Private Eye for earning £50,000 a year as a strategic adviser to something called Circle Healthcare. Mr Simmonds told the paper that the payment was  on the register of MP’s interests, and  that no rules had been broken. “It is imperative that MPs have an understanding of the ‘real world,’” he added. What the Standard neglects to tell us is that the £50k payment comprises four quarterly instalments of £12,500 - each for ten hours’ work a month . That's £415 an hour. Nice “work” if you can get it – and it reminds us of our entry in last week’s blog  - in which we criticised Boston Borough Council’s apprenticeship rates of £2.71p an hour – totalling £95 for a 35 hour week. Now, that’s what we call the real world.
In a rush of activity, no fewer than eight stories appeared on Boston Borough Council’s website on Wednesday. Of these, more than half had already appeared in that day’s newspapers – which gave the surely unintentional impression that the papers were somehow on the ball  and had  got them in advance of the borough - rather than having been sent them some time earlier. There is never a week when reports and photographs supplied by the council appear in the papers – but the trend increasingly appears to publish them … and the photographs that often accompany them … word-for-word  ... as if they are the paper’s own efforts. Sometimes that impression is reinforced with the use of a byline. Of course, everyone does PR these days, but we worry that the relationship between the council and the local press is becoming slightly too cozy, as the soft option of letting someone else fill your publication becomes harder to resist. We worked at the Boston Standard in the days when it was a newspaper, and recall that reporters were encouraged to get out and about – yes, walk the town’s streets, just as the police used to do – with their eyes and ears open to see and hear what was going on. Somehow we don’t believe that this happens very much any more. Our own walks around town these days never fail to find something of note – shops opening … or more commonly, closing … issues that could be turned into local talking points, people to chat to with tales to tell  – but somehow nothing like this ever finds its way into today's newspapers. The chime that announces “you’ve got mail” is the event that these days signifies another story has arrived to fill some space without the need to leave the desk.
When we expressed concern over Boston Borough Council’s apparent desire to dash to spend cash on solar panels to generate power and save the council money, we were at least happy that the issues would be debated in a thorough manner. Despite the uncomfortably short timescale, the recommendation to the borough’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday was: “That Full Council is recommended to support the installation ... at Geoff Moulder Leisure Complex because of the projected return on investment and energy savings.” But reports of the meeting quote Council Leader Peter Bedford as saying that “the mayor has agreed that such a decision should be treated as urgent.” This apparently means that the matter will  not  now go before the full council – which was due to meet in just over a fortnight,  and which could probably have convened in special session for such an important decision. This means that the decision has been taken on the say so of just seven people – two of whom are new to local council politics – at the urging of a mayor recently quoted as saying “women have far more important things to do, like cook dinner and look after their husbands and families than attend meetings in the evenings.” On this basis, at least £125,000 of council taxpayers’ money is being spent. The mind, as they say, boggles!
Meanwhile whilst our leaders rush to cut the council’s power bills, our neighbours in South Holland are once again showing what can be done if the taxpayers are put first. The district council is preparing to negotiate with energy companies to get cheaper prices for residents, and is believed to be the first authority in the country to buy gas and electricity collectively for domestic customers. Up to 34,000 households in the district spend about £40m on gas and electricity, and South Holland says that its buying power will create huge savings for residents. Geographically, we are so near ... yet ideologically and practically, so far!
On a recent visit to the Boston Business Improvement District website we were reminded of the joke about the man waiting in a queue who tries to short circuit matters with the classic line “do you know who I am …?” and expecting to move to the front. The punchline is that the man in charge of the queue announces over the  public address system ...  “could someone call a doctor, please. We have a customer here who has lost his memory.”
The reminder came when we saw this headline above the BID entry in the section “Discover who the Boston BID are and what we are for.”

click photo to enlarge

It’s a question that most of us have been asking for some considerable time – and if they don’t know, what hope is there …?
Finally … we mentioned earlier the phrase the “real world”  - and wonder whether the Boston Standard is subscribing to the Simmonds view - given the ideas suggested in a so-called “advertising feature.” The feature – which oddly carries no relevant advertising - suggests ways to make the most of the extra hour since British Summertime ended. The plan is to increase your “beauty prime time” with a series of ideas to look better – like the one below …

Aside from the fact that one’s face becomes “taut” after a winter walk – rather than being given a lesson - you probably get the drift of  the feature. But it was the cost that took our breath away - the proposal that readers living in Boston and following the advice given in the feature should spend  a total of £185 on beauty creams and equipment for just 58 minutes’ initial use!

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

the campaign seems to have died the death

Ban and gone -how "tough" has turned tepid!

Is it the case that the spirit has gone out of the campaign to reduce drinking on Boston’s streets and in public areas?
It would seem so – given the borough council’s recent joint clarification with Lincolnshire Police of the “confusion” over the town’s Designated Public Place Order.
The council tells us that DPPOs are sometimes “inaccurately” referred to as drinks bans – but that this is not the case.
“It gives only the police the power to confiscate alcohol if its consumption is associated with anti-social behaviour, or is likely to lead to anti-social behaviour.
“So, a family picnicking in Central Park and enjoying a bottle of wine on a sunny Sunday is perfectly acceptable. Someone supping super-strength lager from a can and using foul and abusive language, louting around in the children’s play area or ripping out flowers to throw at one another would be obvious instances where, under the DPPO, police could confiscate their alcohol, pour it away and, if deemed necessary, require them to leave the DPPO area.
“A group of people, peacefully drinking alcohol on a public bench, is not an offence and not an activity the police can take action over.”
What this boils down to is an admission by the police that the DPPO is unforceable, and by the council that for all the hot air spouted when the order was introduced was nothing more than cheap window dressing to soothe the hoi polloi’s concerns about an insoluble problem.
Back in September 2007 when all this was first mooted, the Boston Standard reported that the police had pledged to adopt a 'zero tolerance' approach towards people drinking alcohol in Boston's streets and parks
Co-incidentally, the idea of the family picnic was raised back then – by former Councillor Graham Dovey, who was vice-chairman of the policy development committee which discussed the issue.
“What about sitting in the sun with your wife and children in the park, with a bottle of champagne?” Councillor Dovey was reported to have asked Boston police Sergeant Mick Cordwell. “You can’t have zero tolerance, surely?”
The account of the meeting says that Sergeant Cordwell, was unequivocal. “It has to be zero tolerance,” he said. “I think it’s the only way you can do it.”
The “b” word kept on cropping up in line after line of reports.
A council community safety officer was quoted as saying: “In other areas where a ban has been introduced it seems if you get it right in the first few weeks it almost polices itself.”
A request to extend the DPPO by residents of Witham Bank was rejected, but again the same officer was reported as saying that if the scheme was a success, the alcohol-free area could be extended.
A couple of months later, the Standard reported “Boozing in Boston's town centre streets will be outlawed from Friday.
“Anyone caught in breach of the ban – officially known as a Designated Public Place Order – faces arrest if they refuse to co-operate with police.”
Along with the repeated use of the word “ban” came almost £7,000 in funding to support its implementation – described as extra funds from regional level to pay for a high-profile ‘blitz’ on street drinking in the first weeks after a ban is implemented.
Of this, £4,000 was reportedly being spent on extra police officers and police community support officers “to clamp down on the ban in its first few weeks,” £1,500 on “education” prior to the “ban”, and £1,400 towards signs and publicity advertising the “ban.”
How strange that not once during this frenzy of reporting of the borough council’s apparent embrace of localised prohibition, no one bothered to correct the mistaken idea that the DPPO was anything other than a ban.
What the latest definition appears to mean is that groups of people sitting on park benches or seats beside the town’s waterways downing their tins of strong lager are perfectly acceptable unless they start to tiptoe through the tulips or decide to wear some flowers in their hair.
This is despite the fact that many people find such gatherings intimidating.
What it boils down to is that neither the police nor the council can manage the situation- so they have merely rewritten their own rules to allow them to ignore the bulk of complaints.
The council and the police are not the only people to throw in the towel over this issue, however.
A campaign to ban street drinking is one of the few items of “news” reported on Tory County Councillor Andrea Jenkyns’s website in the past two years or so.
And it trumpeted a campaign to extend the DPPO to the whole of the borough and publicised a website called banstreetbooze.com - launched in her local Boston North West ward, by a group calling themselves Boston North West Action Group.
In the meantime, the group set up a website, which cannot now be accessed, and a blog page – which has lain fallow since the welcoming message of January last year - whilst the domain name banstreetbooze.com was listed as being dropped on 25th May this year, and the website no longer exists.
When it comes to the issues that concern the public, there is one thing you can be sure of.
If at all possible, our so-called “leadership” will do its best to dodge the issue.

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

BBC's bid to balance migrant picture leaves us sick at heart for Boston

Broadcasting’s big guns have again paid a call on Boston with a 30-minute programme called Lives in a landscape - a sound portrait of a visit by  reporter Alan Dein to explore “the simmering tensions caused by a large influx of migrant workers from Eastern Europe.”
The preamble to the programme, which aired on Monday morning, tells us: “On arriving in this traditional market town … Alan hears rumours of escalating crime, homelessness and enforced repatriations. Migration is without doubt the number one issue here - the population of this market town has swollen dramatically since the expansion of the EU, with workers drawn by the ready supply of agricultural work. Alan talks to Bostonians and migrant workers alike. He witnesses for himself the troubles in the town on a Saturday night, attempting to build up a balanced picture of the truth behind the rumours.”
Having listened, we’re not sure what sort of picture has been painted – although it is definitely of the Impressionist school..
The programme is fragmentary, and includes a visit to West Street to see migrant-owned shops, and where we hear from a woman whose daughter in Poland is ill and needs an operation - which is why she is working here, packing salads.
Dein talks to couple who have been teaching English as a foreign language in the town for several years, who admit that in Boston “you will hear any other language but English.”
Their first impression of the town was good, but changed as they lived here day by day
On a visit to Boston market, Alan Dein spoke with a fruit and vegetable stallholder who told him: “Eastern Europeans do most of the picking on the fields. They do it very well. Hard working people. Good luck to them.”
This, though was from someone who lives away from the town, with a vested interest in getting their veg delivered on time!
The familiar laments are trotted forward by interviewees who like the area but think that Boston has changed; who tell us that a lot of people don’t feel safe walking in the town centre at night - and there is mention of a recent murder and rumours of people getting beaten up.
Another local lamented that, when walking through town, you don’t hear an English voice.
After half a century of living here, he said he would recommend his children to move away - and wishes that he had done so years before.
“It’s like banging your head against a brick wall, talking to the local politicians,” was an-other complaint
On a visit to the Centrepoint - Bostons’s focus for the homeless - we learn that just over 50% of their visitors are Eastern European.
Then a 17 year-old tells us that opportunities for his generation “none at all,” and confesses that he could think of nothing he might say were he an ambassador for Boston and asked to describe what was good about it.
We meet another migrant who started out earning £60 a week - “two people in one room, on the floor” - but now drives a Mercedes.
He does not feel representative of his community, and would not recommend friends to come here now. “Many idiots around Boston, Latvians, Poles, Lithuanians - doing terrible things.”
Then we are in town on Saturday night, surrounded by groups of men in T shirts and tattoos ready for a night of drinking.
Just after 2am, four men walk across the road watching group of men watching them. One shouts, hits out, and a man tumbles to the ground. They start to fight until the police arrive to break things up.
No migrants are involved.
Back to another word from one of the Eastern Europeans interviewed earlier in the programme. “I would rather be somewhere else, because I can’t go on with this life forever.”
He says he wants to get away from the tension, which he feels will “build up and grow until it reaches breaking point.”
We close to the sound of beer cans and bottles - along with  empty half bottles of vodka  - that have been dropped on the ground being swept away -  right beside Boston Stump.
We came away from the programme with a heavy heart.
Whilst it had no agenda, it failed  to balance something that simply cannot be balanced.
The overwhelming weight of opinion from both migrants and non-migrants alike was that by and large, Boston is not the best place to live.
Make your own minds up -listen to the programme on the BBC iPlayer by clicking here

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

Grantham Market Place - 12 weeks from start to finish

Last minute

 invite

 may be too

late for many

If there’s one thing that’s worse than taking your harp to a party and nobody asking you to play, it’s when someone decides to hold a party and leaves the invitations so late in the day that there is every likelihood that you will not be able to attend.

Such is the way that the latest invitation to Boston businesses from the “project partners” in the Market Place refurbishment scheme is being perceived after invitations were still arriving yesterday for a “follow up” meeting with businesses in the Assembly Rooms at 6.30pm on Wednesday 2nd November – yes, tomorrow night.
This is to discuss earlier points that have been raised, and also the approach in the run up to the crucial Christmas period – when the County Council has pledged to do everything it can to ease matters for traders and shoppers.
A fervent critic of the way relationships with business are handled in Boston is local business activist Darron Abbott, who has protested to Boston Borough Council’s cabinet town centre supremo, Councillor Derek Richmond, that none of the businesses that he spoke to yesterday morning were aware of the meeting – and nor was the local press.
Nor when we looked at 0530 today had the news appeared on the website of the hopeless Boston Business Improvement District - even though their own staff delivered the invitations.
Mr Abbott demanded that the meeting be called off and re-arranged so that people  had sufficient notice to attend.
But a response from Boston’s Head of Planning and Strategy, Steve Lumb, says  that delivery of the invitations began on Friday - and by Saturday 300 had been “left with businesses.” The rest were being delivered yesterday morning and afternoon.
And in apparent rejection of the suggestion that this was not enough notice, he concluded: “We would hope that businesses with a clear interest will find sufficient time to attend if they wish.”
Perhaps there will be a slice of cake waiting for them when they get there.
Despite the fact that this suggests some level of local involvement in the event, Council Leader Peter Bedford takes Mr Abbott to task for criticising Boston officers "when this is not the case." In an e-mail he says:"The whole thing is being organised  by Lincolnshire County Council..."
That's as may be, but  in all  the information we have seen so far about the scheme,  the borough council is listed as one of the "partners" - alongside Lincolnshire County Council, and the "partners" are supposed to have called the meeting.
Now, however, it appears that Boston Borough Council is claiming "nothing to do with us, guv ..." saying that the County Council arranged through Boston BID for the town rangers to deliver the invitations.
You'll just have to make your own minds up ... but also ask the question why is County Hall running an event in which it is supposed to be a "partner" with Boston - in Boston, and of vital interest to the people of Boston, without apparently deciding to involve us.
As it is, Council Leader Peter Bedford will be unable to attend because of a prior committment and Councillor Richmond - whose presence we thought would have been a must - can only pop in for half-an-hour ... again because of  a pre-arranged meeting.
Meanwhile, the latest progress report on the Market Place scheme  – dated a week ago today - is a mixture of good news and bad news.
First the bad news …
“As with all construction work of this nature we are working with materials that can be affected by adverse weather, and the completion of this section will be vulnerable to such weather. We are still aiming to complete this whole top half of the Market Place and open it up to pedestrians just before Christmas.
“The presence of construction traffic will increase during the above works and so to avoid the risk of potentially serious incidents we would appeal to motorists to follow the alternative car park signs rather than attempt to park in the Market Place.”
Now for the “good” news.
“Between now and Christmas no further footway works are planned (though we will be aiming to complete isolated areas within the new footways ...)
“We are still aiming to complete this whole top half of the Market Place and open it up to pedestrians just before Christmas.”
Followers of this saga will have noted that because of the huge amount of time allocated to the refurbishment project, and the massive disruption for shoppers,  a number of businesses have already been forced to close – whilst others have reported turnover dropping to as low as £30 - £50 a week.
Obviously, had it been possible to reduce the time taken for the project, a lot of pain might have been avoided – but we have always been led to understand that  a big job like this would need an eight-month period between July 2011 and March 2012.
Since then, or course, it got off to a late start, and seems to be proceeding at a snail’s pace.
What a shame we do not live in Grantham – where a similar sized scheme – costing £1.6 million compared with Boston’s £2 million renovation, was officially opened at the weekend.
Work began in June to make Grantham's Market Place pedestrian friendly, with new paving, street furniture and a large sculpture. The whole thing took just twelve weeks over two phases.

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 is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com