Base to blue leader:

Time to come out of your shell

Novice journalists are told that the key questions to ask to elucidate the answers needed to build the framework of any story are Who? What? Where? When? and Why?
Now we know who is leading Boston Borough council, and why, we think it’s time to turn to the What? of it all.
In the radio interview announcing his leadership, Councillor Peter Bedford said:
“The very, very first function to do is to get on along with Lincolnshire County Council and South Holland to start to get in place our local plan so that if you like at least a line in the sand for developers and everybody else to start taking things forward and that has not been done over the four years, the LDS (which we think means the local development scheme, Ed.) has been stood still.”
We think this means that we need to decide where Boston is going in terms of its future development, and whilst it may well be the very, very first thing that needs doing, it would have been helpful to have been given a clue as to what might have been second priority.
Certainly, shared working with other councils was high on the Conservative manifesto prior to the election – but then so was the restoration of green waste collections, which have since resumed under the auspices of the BBI before it was so violently expelled from the local political scene.
We know that the Tories have been working closely with South Holland District Council, and so it is natural that Councillor Bedford should mention that particular authority – but what of our other neighbour … East Lindsey District Council?
We already lend them half the time of a highly paid senior Boston officer - something we have already raised an eyebrow at.
After four years of indifferent and secretive leadership - during which the Boston Bypass Independents addressed only the few issues that took their fancy - we now need something completely different, as Monty Python would say.
We have turned our back on political parties with a short attention span, and have hopefully elected a council that will look towards a better future for Boston and its inhabitants, and that promises to be “transparent” in its dealings with the public
But we need to be involved.
Our new leader has been a Boston councillor for twenty years this year – but how well do we know him? We don’t recall him making much of a mark with comments or observations over that considerable time, and the same is true of his joint deputy, Councillor Michael Brookes.
The time for the strong, silent type is past.
We don’t want moody and magnificent. We need charismatic leadership and a literal voice for Boston that we can hear speaking up loudly for the town.
With Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire, we knew where we stood, and he was not backward in coming forward.
Let’s hope we hear our new leader speaking up for Boston soon.
We want to hear the ideas for Boston’s future; to have verbal portrait of where the town is going painted in our mind’s eye.
Fears have been expressed that Boston’s new rulers’ definition of closer working with Spalding and County Hall might mean doing their bidding, rather working in partnership.
We hope that this will not be the case.

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