Week ending 19th November

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

None so blind- 1 … Concerns raised by Better Boston Group Councillor Brian Rush at the obvious damage to Strait Bargate caused by noisy, smelly, intrusive and unnecessary Into Town bus service have been pooh-poohed by people who ought to know better. Brylaine’s operations director says: “I wasn’t aware that there was any damage, but there used to be two-way traffic using Strait Bargate." He blames the county council, whose principal highways officer says: “It’s difficult to know what caused this.” Do these people think we’re stupid?
None so blind- 2 … The manager of the hapless and hopeless Boston Business Improvement District denies the evidence staring him in the face when he refutes a claim from an organisation called the Local Data Company that Boston has the second highest rate of empty shops in Lincolnshire. By massaging the figures in the LDC report he says that vacant floor space is among the lowest in the county by looking at a wider area and claiming that smaller shops further from the centre are the vacant ones. Again, does he think we’re stupid? And again, we ask – where has the £12,000 allocated by Boston Borough Council for art work to cover empty shop windows and minimise their visual blight gone?
No rift – but we need a letter leader … We congratulate Bypass Independent Councillor Jim Blaylock for his persistence in campaigning for a referendum on whether Boston should have an elected mayor. Whilst he tells the local press that his decision to campaign rather than seek re-election next May is not indicative of any rift with his party, we feel that it won’t have been welcomed by Council Leader Richard Austin. In the unlikely event that he and his party were re-elected. Councillor Austin will wield even more power than  at present. And we have to say that Councillor Blaylock’s quote: “I think it’s really important that people have a leader that will stand and listen to them, who will give them the policies when they vote for them, and stand or fall on those policies,” - if nothing else implies criticism of the present leadership. We wonder whether Councillor Blaylock’s days as a cabinet member and portfolio holder may well now be numbered.
Scarcely flooded out … After all the hoo-ha, banners and pre-publicity, we see that the Boston 200 flood exhibition attracted a mere 1,300 visitors during its four days in the town’s Community Rooms. Presumably that included the great and good of the town, who seemed to be cluttering the place up each time we passed by. The maths show that the exhibition attracted an average of just 54 visitors an hour. One figure that we haven’t been told is how much this exhibition cost – but we are reasonably confident that it will have been several thousand pounds. An expensive whim on the part of Council Leader Richard Austin, and there are still many who wonder why one earth he chose to celebrate this previously all but unknown event with such fervour.
Get it right! … Another of Councillor Austin’s pet projects is the Roll of Achievement, which was launched with scarcely any fanfare last week. Until last night, it was presented incorrectly

But as of this morning, the correct spelling was in place

Which is a good, if slow start. However, in the way that we often do, we pointed out a couple of factual errors in the text. Presumably out of a combination of pique and sheer bloody-mindedness, these errors have remained uncorrected. A project such as the Roll of Achievement - if it is to have any value at all - should at least be accurate. Otherwise it simply makes its publisher look disinterested and ignorant.
What’s the hitch? …. What is going on with the takeover of Boston’s Princess Royal Sports Arena and Geoff Moulder Leisure Pool by the much criticised Leisure Connection? Despite a deal being announced in February an essential document called a certificate of pension board compliance has still not been provided. Given the amount of business that Leisure Connection does with other local authorities we would have expected this to have been no more than a formality. So has something gone wrong that we should know about?
Cop out … Lincolnshire Police seems to have been disproportionately affected by the proposed government expenditure cuts. More than 1,000 civilian workers have been sent emails about voluntary redundancy as the force aims to cut sixty staff. And now Lincolnshire County Council has refused to guarantee that £3 million of funding will continue to be available to be spent on police community support officers. Perhaps the fact that such large cuts can be considered both within and outside the force is sending a message that the county cops have been too well cushioned for too long and now need to learn to live in the real world. And we wonder whether it is mere co-incidence that the pro-establishment Boston Standard should choose this week to devote an entire page to telling us how wonderful the borough’s all-but-invisible PCSOs are.
Snap unhappy … Still with the Standard, we loved this week’s deliberate mistake which saw two of Boston’s great and good reduced to Chadlike figures and two vanish completely without trace in a photograph. See below, and click on the photo to enlarge it.

Had Centrepoint Outreach Chief Executive John Marshall been a few inches shorter, the photo would have resembled little more than one of a coconut shy! Does no one read a newspaper before publication these days?
Any clues? … Finally, does anyone know what the Chinook helicopter that’s been buzzing Boston for the past few days is up to? All answer are welcome.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.