Has financial climate change nipped flowers in the bud?

Given the current climate of spending cuts at Boston Borough Council, we wonder whether another slicing has gone almost unnoticed.
We refer to the "Boston in Bloom" project, under which local businesses apparently contributed towards the cost of enhancing otherwise neglected areas such as traffic islands and other muddy areas around the town -turning them into an urban oasis of flowers and shrubs, with their contribution recognised by a plaque.
But in recent months we have noticed a tendency for many of the businesses who take part to have their names linked to nothing more than patches of grass.
Has the project slipped quietly in abeyance to save a few quid from the borough coffers?
Please let us know if you have the answer.

E-mail us at boston.eye@googlemail.com We always respect requests for confidentiality if they are made.
See you after the weekend.

Latest cuts show "Scanner" was right

It's not that long ago that the council leader was chortling because the borough had escaped any financial losses associated with the Icelandic bankruptcy fiasco - and we remarked at the time that perhaps this was just as well given the BBI's ability to waste money in other areas, such as the Princess Royal Sports Arena. Now we learn that the borough's deficit has leaped by £200,000 in just a month, and is hovering near the million pound mark.
This has led to yet another round of proposed savings, including squeezing the opening hours of the Guildhall and the ludicrous Haven Gallery still further to generate another £13,000. Why not simply mothball both places for the winter, and put the Tourist Information Centre somewhere that people can find rather than continue with these salami slices?
Other savings include £193,000 in vacancies (sounds like a few redundancies wouldn't go amiss here) and cutting funding to the Boston Area Regeneration Committee (we often wonder precisely what this is as it seems little other than a sponge for soaking up money) and £35,000 in maintenance.
According to the local papers, Boston's cabinet member for finance Councillor Richard Lenton has listed one of the main areas of concern as reduced income from bereavement services.
If we recall, this is an issue repeatedly raised by our contributor "Scanner," who predicted that raising these costs could mean problems.
He wrote: "Last year crematorium and cemetery charges were hiked to try and fill this year’s council spending black hole and, at the same time, a new crematorium opened in Alford. At that time, I warned that both of these moves could affect our business. Have they done so, and if so, by how much?"
A good question, but one which we doubt anyone at the council will be willing to answer.

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Screen goes blank for Boston

Once in while we come across a new website which is someone's big idea for "putting on the map" places which have been there since since Domesday.
The latest we've found calls itself "Channel:Lincolnshire" and plans to promote the county via a TV web service.
In its promotional blurb, Channel:Lincs boasts

"Channel:Lincolnshire is the culmination of the printing press, television, computers and the Internet rolled together. Never before through any media has the whole of Lincolnshire been as comprehensively represented" (our italics)

It goes on to say that it works with a range of partners throughout the county - including the Federation of Small Businesses, Lincolnshire Sports Partnership, various sports clubs, commercial organisations and local authorities.
And it adds: "Whether your nearest town is Grimsby, Market Rasen, Scunthorpe, Lincoln, Louth, Skegness, Sleaford, Grantham, Spalding, LongSutton (sic), The Deepings, Stamford or Bourne we would like to hear from you, we are here to be your platform."
So they call that comprehensive?
Notice Boston's conspicuity by its absence?
If you want to try to change that, and more importantly are in a position to do so, you can visit the site at http://www.channellincolnshire.co.uk/
If you do manage to get Boston on to their map, please let us know.

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Ebenezer would have raised his nightcap!

The spirit of Scrooge lives on ahead of Christmas 2008.
The long awaited revised council tax bills have at last arrived, and the one that we've seen for a band A property demands the standard instalment for November that has been in place since April, then approximately £23 less for December and January.
In these hard times (whoops! a Dickens reference again) wouldn't it have been nice to have evened out the payments so that people needing just that extra few quid ahead of the festive season could have laid their hands on it.
Never mind. Far better that it should languish in the borough coffers than spread a little joy among the area's residents.

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Coverage is de-pressing!

Our contributor "Scanner" was bang on the money to criticise our local newspapers for their general lack of enthusiasm for anything municipal."Accurate and detailed accounts of council meetings seem to be a thing of the past," he wrote."Are the days of investigative reporting by our locals over as well? Does apathy rule OK? "They seem to just accept council statements at their face value without any questioning. Don’t they do any in-depth scrutiny of decisions made within the hallowed walls in Wet Street Buildings? Have they even heard of the Freedom of Information Act?"If any councillors out there can give answers to the above questions, I’m sure the Target and the Standard would be pleased to publish them for you. But please don’t make the figures too complicated as they may not understand them."We speak from experience when we say that journalists by and large are a lazy lot. Today's band of inky pilgrims are by and large ill trained wannabes (they usually aspire to a quick move to radio or television as a leap to fame and fortune) with a degree from a college which can barely spell its name, and who continue that tradition in their writings.
Years ago, Boston Borough Council employed a former Standard hack to attend meetings and fax reports to the local press and local radio. At least this guaranteed some sort of coverage - even though it was mostly of the self-serving style that the Bypass Independents would doubtless regard as good. But at least it meant wider coverage of council affairs which in turn helped maintain public interest in what the council was doing on their behalf.
The council has of course had a website for some time, but it is used in a strange manner.
In these days of domination by the world wide web, we would have thought that it was not beyond the "wit" of the borough's communicators to inform the electorate of the decisions of those who regard themselves as our betters as soon as possible.
Instead information is hard to obtain - and the "approved" medium - "Boston Matters" - is nothing more than a money wasting laughing stock which in the days before Izal was invented would have found a more worthy purpose.
Yet another in the long line of insults from our so-called "representatives."

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It's my party, so I'll do nothing if I want to!

Excitement mounts ahead of the big election.
No, not the one in the United States on 4th November - but the far more important Fenside seat on Boston Borough Council on the 13th.
All the usual suspects will be there, the Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservative, the British National Party, the Boston Bypass Independents and the U.K. Independence Party.
As we predicted earlier in the week, conspicuous by their absence will be the so-called Better Boston Group, which prompts us to ask yet again exactly what it represents.
We have heard no concerted policy offered by this group, nor does it appear even to issue statements as a team.
Some while ago, a couple of current members jumped around and ranted at the In Town buses as they meeped through Strait Bargate on the first day of the service and then apparently shrugged, wandered off and were never seen or heard from again.
Presumably, being in a "group" benefits its members in terms of allocation to committees, which they would not enjoy as unaligned councillors.
But things at what our contributor "Scanner" delightfully parodies as the Wet Street offices really need a kick up the bypass.
So why isn't the Better Boston Group taking a real role in local democracy?
And, as another commentator has asked: why are there not more independent candidates?
Surely if parties such as the BNP and UKIP think Fenside is worth the candle, isn't it a shame that some local worthy wasn't willing to enter the race.

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Hear, hear!

A letter in the Boston Standard, signed Observer, succinctly reflects the impact on the town wreaked by the election of the Boston Bypass Independent party.

He/she higihlights the fact that they immediately caved in to Lincolnshire County Council and agreed to that council's plans which, in effect, almost certainly means Boston will not see a bypass in the foreseeable future and, in all probability, will only add to the current congestion.
They also agreed to buses going through the pedestrian precinct, spent over £1m on the Guildhall, then made it accessible to visits only by advance booking during winter months. "And as for the decision to relocate the Tourist Information Centre from its ideal place in the centre of the town, words almost fail me." he concluded.
Observer suggests that instead of still providing for the PRSA, why not stop this payment also? And why not suggest to the councillors that, in these difficult times, they forego their attendance allowances and only claim their expenses.
"Why not, in future, have people who stand for the council on an independent ticket only?
Perhaps then we can get people there who actually will do what residents want and not what their party tells them to do. We certainly did not expect some of the decisions which the current bunch have taken in our name."
Observer, there's a job at Boston Eye if you're ever looking for one!

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Caught red handed ... and red faced!

It seems like the glass ceiling for women seeking employment as gangmasters is well and truly in place in Boston. The Standard reports this week "Gangmasters in the Boston area have been hit by surprise raids as part of a major crackdown on rouge operators."

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Old councillors never fade away!

The mention of improvements to the borough's website list of councillors prompted us to look still further, and we read the list of the full council membership (available by following http://www.boston.gov.uk/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=3434 with interest.
Far from being up to date it still lists the council's membership as including messrs McGregor and Curley.
Ah well!

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Listings galore

It seems a lifetime ago that we highlighted the problems of contacting your councillor through the borough's website. In fact it was shortly after the Bypass Independents floated into power on a thermal of hot air.
But we are pleased to hear that by Monday afternoon the Boston councillors section of the website was completely re-vamped so there are now three extra 'easy to find' links to the councillors page. Councillors can now be viewed in order of ward, or name, or individually. Its also linked into the County Council website (although we have to say we can't find it.) Additionally, all copy is now standardised, with all photos made the same size, except for five at present, where the councillors concerned have been requested to have their photos retaken for the purpose of neatness and website presentation.
If it were for neatness and presentation per se, we feel that a lot more than five would be mugging for the photographer!
Unfortunately, the 'update' does not appear to have taken the departure of Guy Curley into account, as he remains listed in the wards section of the site.
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Scanner asks: Should council be mothballed for winter to save us even more money?

So, the Guildhall has to close for the winter and, in spite of denials by our Ober Fuhrer, I’ve heard of at least one redundancy and another post, the Education Officer’s, will not be filled as the lass has departed to an area that pays much more than just lip service to tourism. The need, apparently, is to save £19,000. Not a huge amount in council spending terms, but, being cynical, I wonder what is behind this sudden drive to slash spending. Councillors, several years ago, were supposed to have adopted a monthly finance reporting system so that officers could highlight problems as soon as they arose. So is this a result of feedback on this one aspect by our accountants or is there a deeper problem that is being kept under wraps?
Will our councillors make public the answers to the following very important questions? They do, after all, claim to run a transparent council and could easily get the figures if the reporting system is in place. If it is not, perhaps they should be questions all
councillors or the local press ought to be seeking the answers to.
Are the crematorium receipts meeting their budget so far this year? Last year crematorium and cemetery charges were hiked to try and fill this year’s council spending black hole and, at the same time, a new crematorium opened in Alford. At that time, I warned that both of these moves could affect our business. Have they done so, and if so, by how much?
Last year, to keep a political promise, our leaders tampered with car parking charges. By how much are car parking receipts within budget so far this year?
In spite of the benefits of pensioners’ free bus passes, what is the ratio of paid journeys made to free ones, and what is the ratio of journeys made to the total number of seats offered? How much was the government grant for this service and, using the above statistics, will it cover the total costs for the whole year?
What was the expenditure and income relating to the Party in the Park? We were told that there was a terrific loss of over £50,000. Incredibly, that is more than half of the total cost of the event. This was in spite of being assured that entry charges would solve any problems. What were the staffing costs? Other borough run events, such as the Boston Show, were sunk because of high council staffing charges. Perhaps the sacking of CAMRA had an effect? What were the extra costs – security of cash, performing rights etc.- relating to the collection of admission charges and was there, in fact a profit from doing so? We were asked: “Should plug be pulled on party?” And Councillor Blaylock even had the cheek to suggest that we should fork out more. After the uproar the BBIG group made about event insurance, did they have it this year, and, if so, what was the cost? How can any of us make an informed decision without knowing the full costs? Are they even able to give them to us?
How many visitors has our “new, improved” Tourist Information Bureau had so far compared to the last equivalent period of time in the efficient, much missed TIC in the Market Place?
I apologize to the council if some of these figures have already appeared in the minutes. But I must still take to task our so called “news” papers. Accurate and detailed accounts of council meetings seem to be a thing of the past. Are the days of investigative reporting by our locals over as well? Does apathy rule OK? They seem to just accept council statements at their face value without any questioning. Don’t they do any in-depth scrutiny of decisions made within the hallowed walls in Wet Street Buildings? Have they even heard of the Freedom of Information Act?
If any councillors out there can give answers to the above questions, I’m sure the Target and the Standard would be pleased to publish them for you. But please don’t make the figures too complicated as they may not understand them. Your replies, of course, would be welcome here!

Scanner

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Eye piece was "over reactive humour"

Boston's newest councillor, Raymond Singleton-McGuire, takes us to task for a recent piece., which read:‘Meanwhile, we welcome Raymond Singleton-McGuire to the council, and hope that all three of them will settle in smoothly. Sadly, we think that Councillor RSM may have got off to a slightly aloof start, given that his entry on the irrepressibly lacklustre council web site omits an email address and offers only a convenient-to-switch-off mobile 'phone number rather than a land-line number where any constituent can eventually find him.’

He says: "I read with interest your web page on the various Boston political issues as often as possible. I do, however, feel on this occasion you may have missed out on the facts somewhat with your over reactive attempted humour and sensationalism regarding the above. Therefore, let me enlighten you somewhat. My landline was initially placed on the Council’s web page, but proved difficult for some constituents who wanted to contact me sooner rather than later. As most calls to me are made during the day when I’m not there to answer, I hope therefore, surely, you can see the benefits of using a mobile phone, which, by its very nature, is mobile! For your information, it was the general consensus of the constituents that my mobile number was used rather than my landline.
"I am somewhat at a loss as to your editorial comments stating: -
‘offers only a convenient-to-switch-off mobile 'phone number rather than a land-line number where any constituent can eventually find him.’
"Based on the above, I would like to know how you consider a landline which is not manned, and generally fixed in one place, can offer a better contact arrangement than a mobile. Surely, you must agree it is better to have a mobile turned off from time to time for various reasons such as a meeting etc., where it can take messages. Then, return calls can be made immediately afterwards, rather than return calls from a landline which, by its very nature has inherent delays.
"The email address is an easy one to answer. All Councillors have an email address at their respected local Council offices, as you will no doubt know. All emails are transferred to my private email address, so enabling me to collect and correspond from any location.
"I believe what I have explained is basic up-to-date technology, which is used by most, and if not, then there are systems in place for those of us/constituents who prefer to use other methods of contact. I can assure you no attempt has been put in place to either misguide or make contacting me difficult. In fact, completely the reverse. It therefore saddens me to read your attempted exercise in condemnation without first knowing the facts.
However, I would like to thank you for bringing the email issue to my attention. This is a temporary matter and the BBC IT department have assured me matters will be back to normal ASAP.

Raymond Singleton-McGuire Cllr

"P.S. I can assure you that whilst I may work as hard as three people, I am in fact, only one person!"

A bridge too filthy!

In the past, we tended to scoff at the "Mess of the Month" when it appeared in our local newspapers.
But we're starting to think that the return of such a public conscience would be welcome if it mioght bring about improvements in some areas of the town.
We've just taken a ride along Main Ridge after a reader reported the pathetic state of the former Vauxhall Bridge Motors.
What a disgrace.
Barricaded like some sort of prison camp, the ground strewn with weeds, the windows smashed, and the whole this a trap for wind borne litter that clutters the whole of the road.
Surely, someone ought and should do something about it.

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Councilspeak for "go boil your head!"

While other local authorities have managed to re-issue council tax bills in the wake of the Lincolnshire Police fiasco, Boston's finance department is still licking its pencils and sharpening its quills.
We're promised revised bills by the end of October, and whilst this delay is surely not deliberate, it does benefit the council in that it collects as much money as possible right up to the bitter end.
Meanwhile most taxpayers are worse off by around £46.38, and to add insult to injury the chocolat théière known as the Boston Borough Council website, whilst inviting visitors to "veiw (sic) the revised charges for 2008/09, any attempt to do so is rewarded with the message "You are not authorised to view this resource. You need to login. "
If the taxpayers aren't authorised, we wonder who on earth is!

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Win some, lose some

We mentioned the chewing gum removal machine a few days ago, and its operator has certainly got well and truly stuck into the job of tidying the town's pavements.
Unfortunately, we think that they now look worse than before (if you've not seen them in person, take a look in this week's Boston Standard) and wonder whether there are also plans to actually clean up the surface after the gum has been removed.
If not, it may as well stay put.
It also seems a little disingenuous to trumpet the saving of less than £20,000 on closing the Guildhall, then blowing seven grand on a machine that simply highlights the messy state of Boston's pavements.


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Sorry, Boston is closed!

The gloomy news that Boston's historic Guildhall will effectively be closed to local people for the winter is only lightened by the news that the "great glass box of arse and artefacts" is having its hours cut back as well.
The Haven gallery would probably have been better left as a boarded up derelict bed centre (when it might then have won the Turner Prize) than converted into the pretentious piece of cultural drivel that it is today.
The only problem with cutting back on the Haven's hours is that it means cutting back on access to the Tourist Information Centre as well.
But having visited the TIC a few times, we have been bitterly disappointed at the indifference of the staff and the lack of anything useful by way of information available.
It's almost as though Boston has a death wish as far as its desire to be a magnet for visitors is concerned.
But if you do want a decent TIC, we recommend the one at the Springfields outlet in Spalding.
Meanwhile if the quoted saving of less than £20,000 that will be achieved by the cuts in opening hours at the Guildhall and Haven are correct, we wonder whether the price is really worth it.
Still, it's only a fraction of the amount that the BBI will doubtless be wasting on next year's Party in the Park.

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No help needed!

A headline from today's Boston Standard reads "Government needs to help blind residents."
No it doesn't!
It's already got the Bypass Independents to pull the wool over their eyes!

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BBI fails to organise yet another booze-up in a brewery

So, after years of closure and hundreds of thousands of pounds of local taxpayers money spent on refurbishment, Boston's Guildhall is effectively being closed to local people for four and a half months as a puny cost-saving exercise.
Once again Boston Borough Council's masters have proved that they cannot be entrusted with anything remotely important.
We clipped our coupons from the hilariously useless "Boston Matters" and took a free visit earlier in the year (locals used to get a free look round every Thursday, but that stopped when the place re-opened, if you remember) and were very disappointed at what we saw.
The place was clean, clinical and utterly lacking in atmosphere. Each time we entered a room, hidden speakers began bellowing what we supposed was imagined actuality of days gone by, which was the final nail in the coffin for any attempt to soak up what little atmosphere remained. As one of the council's officers said at time of the re-opening, the Guildhall is something that the town should be proud of.
Notwithstanding the fact that it picked up a couple of awards in what is, after all, a fairly restricted category, the biggest blunder was to re-open the place on the Bypass Independent Party's watch.
They invariably have their eye off the ball.

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Keeping their heads down

As one of our regulars welcomed our return to the world wide web after the summer break, he commented that it seemed as though the bypass independents had been keeping their heads down and leaving little to comment about over the same period.

That does seem to be true.

We've noted that the deputy leader has been remarkably silent given his gaffe prone utterances of the party's early days which at times seemed to be making him a worthy challenger to the likes of that other famous deputy, John Prescott.
Perhaps the phrase "silence is golden is resonating" somewhere.

As golden as a mayoral chain.

But we also note attempts by the leader to put a glossy spin on the borough's non-investment in Icelandic banks.

But then, as things such as the Princess Royal Sports Arena and the party in the park demonstrate so well, the BBI needs no external help which it comes to pouring our council taxpayers money down the drain.

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A load of old rubbish! (II)

Still on the subject of rubbish, we learn that people who put non-recyclable items in their blue bins will face tougher action.
From February 1st if a blue bin is contaminated with dog waste, food waste, dirty nappies or black bags, the bin's owners will get a letter reminding them of what they can and can't dump.
If they do it again a second letter will carry a sterner warning, and if the bin is contaminated for a third time the householders will be fined £100.
If this doesn't stop them they'll be taken to court.
Cllr Richard Dungworth, cabinet member for recycling, said: "Before the stricter rules come into effect we want to help as many people as possible recycle more of the right stuff. Recycling rules can be confusing – that's why we've given this campaign a four-month period to help as many residents as possible."
Boston Borough Council's operations manager George Bernard said: "We want to encourage as many people as possible to recycle responsibly. Government rules mean that we have to encourage recycling and divert as much waste as possible from landfill."
Two points here - first Councillor Dungworth's assertion that the rules can be confusing. We're not sure how. The list of what may be put into the blue bins is straightforward enough, and if people simply can't be bothered to adhere to it they shouldn't get a "holiday" before they're brought to book.
Mr Bernard is correct when he says that the council must encourage as much recycling as possible - so why did it do away with the collection of glass, which must account for a huge amount of reclaimable material?
Relying on people to take their own recyclables to collection points is all very fine, but it depends on a sense of duty, which is frequently lacking these days - and there are many people who simply can't make the journey.
Come on Boston - you can do better than this.

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A load of old rubbish!

The ongoing debate about the untidiness of Boston's waterways brought a smile to our lips when the so-called Environment Agency tried to dismiss the dumping of a load of waterborne rubbish on the banks of the Maud Foster as some kind of glitch in a "system" under which they collect the rubbish and the borough council disposes of it.
An EA spokesman had the nerve to refer to their "monthly" clean-up of the waterway.
One or two of our more vocal friends in the debate about the open sewer known as the Maud Foster waterway told us that they recalled seeing a couple of barges chugging the length of the drain from the docks to the golf club about ten days ago.
One person who has lived beside "old Maudie" for more than 25 years told us that this was the first time he could recall seeing such a vision for at least 12 years, whilst another more junior resident said that she had never seed the waterway being surfed for garbage in a decade.
We hope that the Environment Agency will stop treating us like fools and believing that telling lies will make us believe that they really have an interest in Boston's heritage.
The borough council needs to take a stronger line with this bunch of eco-fibbers.

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Merd-er of an excellent attraction

As if to add insult to injury, the irrepressibly counter-inventive Bypass Independents have managed to do away with one of the few genuinely worthwhile attractions to the town - the Continental Market.
The BBI's obsession with allowing noisy, empty coaches to herd shoppers aside whilst they meader through Strait Bargate several times an hour has created knock-on problems for anyone wishing to use the space near W H Smith's.
Apparently, the organisers of the continental market demurred when offered a choice between staging their event on the Green or in the Market Place (where they would most probably have been displaced by the traditional market anyway) and decided to ditch their visit to Boston entirely.
After last year's debacle, which saw a couple of stalls stranded and isolated in West Street, and which left les brave continentals looking extremely foolish through no fault of their own, they have wisely decided that discretion is the better part of valour.
Chalk up another victory up to the BBI - soon all they will need to do is build a wall around the town to isolate it completely from the rest of Lincolnshire.


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Time to talk the talk

With another by-election following hard on the heels of that in the Coastal ward in July we wonder whether the Better Boston Group will seize the opportunity that it then so conspicuously missed to field a candidate in the Fenside election to replace Guy Curley (the second by-pass party member being driven to drink and then unwisely also to drive.)
At the moment, all the BBG represents is a gaggle of disaffiliated former Bypass Independents who have either been sacked, resigned or who just became disillusioned with the political golden bough offered by the jam tomorrow policies of leader Richard Austin.If the Better Boston Group wishes to be taken seriously, it surely needs to field a candidate.
That, in turn, means coming up with some policies - heaven forbid that we suggest they should draw up a manifesto - and even a website would be a good starter for ten.
Meanwhile, we welcome Raymond Singleton-McGuire to the council, and hope that all three of them will settle in smoothly. Sadly, we think that Councillor RSM may have got off to a slightly aloof start, given that his entry on the irrepressibly lacklustre council website omits an email address and offers only a convenient-to-switch-off mobile 'phone number rather than a land-line number where any constituent can eventually find him.

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By gum, that's what we call great news!

So, Boston borough council has spent £7,000 on a machine to remove chewing gum from the town's pavements.
Council Leader Richard (Papa Dick) Austin says with characteristic understatement: "This is
great news for Boston" ( quite what hyperbole he is keeping back in the unlikely event that the town ever gets a by-pass, we shall probably never know)
He goes on: "Tidying up the town centre is something I am passionate about."
What a shame that the leader's passion does not extend to the rest of the town, which is where the bulk of the people who pay their council tax live.
The local papers have made much in recent weeks of the appalling state of the waterways which run through the town, and which anywhere else would be regarded as a jewel in the civic crown to be cherished rather than used as an open sewer in the style of our medieval ancestors.
But it's not only the town's unique assets that are being abused in this way.
Walk through any street in Boston and be appalled by the level of litter on the pavements and in the gutters.
Still, as Councillor Austin can probably testify more so than most, as one gets older, gum problems become ever more irritating!

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