Week ending Friday 22nd July

Our Friday miscellany

  of the week's

news and events

The promise of more openness and transparency at Boston Borough Council was one of the Big Five pledges made in the Conservative election “manifesto.” And it appears that there is now a Baldrick-style cunning plan to make it appear to be happening. In the bad old days, “pink papers” - confidential documents whose appearance on an agenda signalled the exclusion of the press and public – littered committee meetings like confetti. To all appearances, there were none lurking at Wednesday’s meeting which discussed the financing of the office of Mayor – as the agenda showed.

But wait. In the meeting documents, the preamble says “Appendix B contains exempt information as defined under paragraph 4 of part 1 of schedule 12a to the local government act 1972.” Presumably this is because it contains information relating to staff. But it doesn’t change the fact that the agenda contains no mention of Appendix B – which makes it look as though nothing secret is on it – and it therefore appears more open and transparent than it really is. What a surprise for members of the public and press if they got the old heave-ho halfway through the meeting to that this item could be discussed. It lends a whole new meaning to the expression “taking your appendix out!”

Another interesting insight into the hard work of local government is also available to agenda watchers – or rather it was! The first Cabinet meeting of the new authority was held on June 21st and was little more than a rubber stamp exercise of one or two outstanding matters. The next meeting was scheduled for next week, and as the time approached for the agenda items to be made available to the public, guess what happened? The meeting vanished from the list – apparently cancelled with just days to go. The next meeting is scheduled for early in September. The Cabinet is, or course the decision making inner sanctum of Boston Borough Council, and it is not encouraging that once the Conservative administration got its carpet slippers under the table they have apparently chosen holidays above the business of Boston - as next week and the following one comprise the traditional British fortnight’s break. Any excuse of insufficient business is unacceptable. The business is there – it’s just the politicians who aren’t!
We don’t know who is responsible for keeping the roadside drains clear and free-flowing, but we dearly wish that they would get on and do their job. It’s not the first time we’ve mentioned that large chunks of Boston disappear under several inches of water whenever it rains heavily – which of course it did last Saturday. Pescod Square was awash, as were areas of John Adams Way.

In fact if you look carefully at some of the drains along that road, you will see that they are blocked with dust and debris which is so heavily packed that plants are growing beneath the drain gratings and pushing through the grilles. The entrance to the Botolph Street cark park was under so much water that it was washing over the pavement. This was after a fairly short but heavy downpour. The consequences would be much worse if it rained for some hours.
Talking of who is responsible for what – is someone trying to shut Boston down for good? This week we toured the town, with the intention of winding up at Tesco for a shop. Spilsby Road was still a mess. The job will certainly take the full twelve weeks threatened if - as we saw on Wednesday – just one workman was on duty jet washing the old white lines. Elsewhere, there were four way traffic lights at the junction of Robin Hood’s Walk and Norfolk Street (which is being closed for more than a month from Monday, don’t forget) – and anyone using that route will also encounter the closure of Carlton Road. At the junction of Brothertoft Road and Sleaford Road, there was another set of four way traffic lights – which caused a tail-back from the Boardsides roundabout all the way into town. Elsewhere on our journey, we encountered numerous other small sets of roadworks which – whilst none was serious in itself – added even more minutes to an already frustrating journey. Can no one devise a plan to stagger these major roadworks so as keep the traffic flowing? Apparently not.
We were looking at a copy of the Carlton Road Neighbourhood Action Group newsletter the other day. It’s compiled by “a friendly group of like minded residents” who comprise the steering group for the area’s Placecheck scheme – and we think that it demonstrates very well how money on the project is being wasted. If you remember, Placecheck funding totals £100,000 - of which half is kept for admin and the remaining £50k is split into packages of £10,000 for each of five selected neighbourhoods to use to improve life in their area. The Carlton Road cash has been spent thus: heaters for a local church - £2,000; bulb planting £1,200; paying a supervisor for Lincolnshire Probation service £1,916.34; a basketball post - £2,000; paying Boston Borough Council for “dual purpose bins” - £1,566.42. There were also plans to blow £1,000 on a mural, but these apparently fell through. Instead, the money is to go on an event being staged by a group aimed at promoting equality in Boston called WAM (“What About Me?”) - set up by Boston Youth Council to try to get disabled and ethnic minority groups together into the community with people they would not normally mix with. We don’t know about you, but much of this seems to be spending for the sake of it. Not only that, but 20% of the money is going on yet more admin with the probation service, while almost the same amount is being paid to Boston Borough Council for “bins” – something we would expect them to provide anyway.
And speaking of bins … There is apparently no mixed reaction to the poorly thought out green waste collection pilot scheme. Instead of getting a dedicated bin – which is what most people expected would happen – the guinea pigs selected for the pilot must put their garden waste in the blue bin that so many of us keep dry and clean, and their recyclable waste in plastic bags for collection. One reader tells us: “Day Two of the new green waste service, I need to dispose of three large boxes, I now have two split bags and a pile of soggy cardboard on the back yard along with another bag containing two empty wine bottles that I had to consume to be able to get the cardboard cut down small enough into the now split bags.” Whilst every cloud has a silver lining, we are sure that many others will face similar problems – put perhaps without the wine to sustain them. A second reader e-mails us to say: “I am a person who unfortunately lives in an area selected for the green waste pilot scheme which began yesterday. I am at a total loss to understand the rationale behind this idea which I think is far less than good. I wish it was not happening in the form that it is. Why could not green waste be put into sacks to be taken away? Now, a question, will the council receive any form of payment from the contractor for the green waste? If so how is that income to be channelled? Will it cover the entire cost of the system? As we know there is nothing more permanent than that which is supposed to be a temporary situation for trial purposes. I wonder if the people who thought up this project have ever heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences - an example may be "fly tipping". What an awful idea …”
Whilst we are always sorry to see them demise of free speech, we are prepared to make the occasional exception. The Boston Bypass Independents’ second blog  - nicknamed the Bostoninnies - has now been curtailed. Oddly, the original one from 2007 is still accessible.

The fact that a minimal rump of BBI founders remains on Boston Borough Council confirms what we always thought about the absent blog - that it was a private hobbyhorse for a former councillor rejected by voters in May who has now lost interest.
One thing that we've mentioned on several previous occasions are the questions that often outnumber those on the issue in hand that feature in Boston Borough Council questionnaires. You remember the ones? They include whether householders are bisexual, gay, lesbian or straight, whether they have a long-term illness or disability and how this affects them, and their ethnicity, and a host of other things that most people would rather not answer. Now, it appears that these questions are not only unnecessary, but asking them creates an unnecessary expense. They are asked under a requirement to "promote and ensure" diversity under the Equality Act 2010, which consolidated various legislations including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 - and according to a national newspaper report, there is considerable confusion over whether gathering such information is a legal requirement. Some councils believe it is, whilst others did not send out the forms. After a survey, it was estimated that 359 of the 419 local authorities request information from residents - including Boston. The story emerged after a grandmother in North Norfolk was outraged when she received an equality monitoring form after complaining about her bin collections. John O’Connell of the Taxpayers’ Alliance accused council chiefs of wasting funds on the "irrelevant" and "bizarre" schemes."Spending reductions have to be made and this is exactly the sort of thing that can be cut with no effect on services,"he said. A spokesman for the Home Office, which is responsible for the Equality Act 2010, said: ‘There is nothing in the legislation that states these forms have to be sent out.’ So come on, Boston Borough Council - you can spare our blushes and save a few quid into the bargain if you drop these silly questions. If you want to see a typical of the questions, you can see then by clicking here 
There’s good news for allotment holders Lincoln whose plots were almost sold off for housing but are now to be restored after nearly a decade. Forty-four of the 112 plots at Yarborough Crescent were abandoned in 2002 due to lack of demand. Despite the plans for houses, nothing happened, and a surge in popularity for allotments has led to a waiting list of 185. This reminds us of the Broadfield Lane allotments in Boston, where tenants were evicted on the orders of a greedy local charity which thought it could flog the land to developers for around £500,000. The collapse of the housing market has been the site degenerate over time and the area is now more eyesore than environment. If, as seems likely, the land will remain unsold for the foreseeable future, why doesn’t the charity relent and return the land to allotment use for a period of say five years? That way it would get back the small income that it used to receive and distribute before it was blinded by big money numbers that would mostly be poured down the drain if given away.
Given the highbrow attitude of local “mainstream” politicians to the English Democrats party, we were amused to read a piece in the magazine Total Politics about Sir Richard Body – the Tory stalwart who represented our area as a revered MP for 35 years. In an article headed “Where are they now?” Total Politics maps Sir Richard’s chequered political history. It reminds us that he subsequently defected to the UK Independence party, and says that he later joined … the English Democrats. Worse still for our maverick hating local Tories, Sir Richard is also a Vice President of the Society for Individual Freedom – “an association of libertarians, classical liberals and others who seek to promote responsible individual freedom.” We suspect that, if asked, they would now endorse Sir John Mayor’s comment on Sir Richard made in 1994: “When I hear the name of Richard Body I hear the sound of flapping white coats.”
There was a rapid reaction from a reader to yesterday’s piece from South Holland Conservative Councillor Roger Gambba-Jones, attacking our criticism of Boston’s Tories.  A reader e-mailed to say: “The opinion of Roger Gambba-Jones beggars belief and is an insult to the intellect of the Boston electorate. I don't think you could wish for a better example of the Big Brother mentality that seems to pervade the halls of Boston Borough Council - they have now taken to roping in an outside defence advocate to kick the critics into touch! Clearly they are already wary of defending the indefensible - and that is only after a few months of office. West Street's silence is deafening on just about every issue - other than the odd good news story. The truth is we presently have a number of councillors who were encouraged into standing as candidates (dare I mention the word paper?) and, horror of horrors, now find themselves out of their depth. Ergo -vote for whatever the leader says and nod when ever given the nod to do so. How appropriate Gambba-Jones' portfolio of Waste Management is - we could do with some here of late, in more ways than one.”
Yet another reason for Sir George Gilbert Scott to go on some sort of list of famous people with links to Boston came in an e-mail after our piece last week. It reminded us that another of his local achievements was Holy Trinity Church, on Spilsby Road. To bad that the surroundings of the building have been ruined – but at least the church is still intact.
Last week we remarked on what a pity it was that the Boston Standard no longer boasted a printing press in the centre of town - as it could have run a special edition on the Broadfield Lane industrial estate explosion. You could have knocked us down with a feather when this week’s paper appeared under the banner “Explosion Special.” The only problem with this – as any seasoned hack will tell you – is that this was not in any way a “special.” The term is used for a one-off production which gives exclusive coverage to a particular issue. Wednesday’s issue was simply a newspaper, published on its customary day which dedicated the front page and four inside pages to coverage  - including  some highly OTT phrases -of what is probably the biggest news story to affect Boston in the last decade or more. This is to be expected – not “special.” One might call it “bog Standard.”

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