Once again, PRSA is being fast and loose with OUR money!

Once again that famous local money pit - aka the Princess Royal Sports Arena - is advertising discount rates for its health and fitness club.
"Beat the credit crunch," says the flyer, "and save up to £300."
It goes on to offer the mouthwatering bonus of no joining fee (for the first 100 new members only) up to four months free (depending on the type of membership) and no long term contract.
You'll need to act quickly, because the offer is only open until the end of the month.
And despite the obvious caveats mentioned in the offer, there is also that deadly subtext "terms and conditions apply."
We've said it before, and we'll say it again.
Any fitness club that can afford to knock as much as £300 off its prices is charging too much! We also note that the full cost is never disclosed in promotions like these, which also makes us wonder just how high the charges are.
And why on earth are we, the council taxpayers, subsidising such a luxury?
The reason that the PRSA can afford such a generous offer is that it is effectively underpinning it with other people's money - and we saw where that can lead during the recent banking crisis.
The PRSA started life as a business and has spectacularly failed.
In the real world (the one inhabited by the ordinary townsfolk of Boston) if a business isn't viable then drastic action is taken. Talk to the staff who until recently had what they thought was a secure job at the Boston branch of Woolworth's.
The PRSA has not only failed financially.
It has failed in its basic statement of purpose - to provide a facility for use by both disabled and able bodied athletes.
It has evicted the only organisation that gave it some sort of credibility - the Boston and District Athletic Club, and it would now appear that its income depends mainly on bussing in six hundred schoolchildren a week - a figure which is set to double. What great news for adults who fancy a quiet swim!
In contrast to the outrageous fees sought by the PRSA, membership of BADAC is £15 a year for adults, £8 for children and pensioners and a mere £35 for families.
Those are the sort of prices that are tailor made to attract people to pursue a healthy lifestyle.
BADAC also has a simple philosophy - "Access for all - no barriers."
There's a lesson to be learned by the PRSA there, surely.
It's high time we declared the PRSA UNfit, and looked at ways to make it affordable and accessible to all.
To add insult to injury the shadowy Boston Sports "Initiative" has a letter in the local press this week patronisingly saying that it is "willing to accept" BADAC members (to whom they offer "sympathy" as paying visitors.)
The word snide springs to mind.
In the letter, the BSI complains of "numerous inaccuracies in the public domain" regarding BADAC and the use of facilities at the PRSA.
However, given their secretiveness, and use of taxpayers' money as a hammer to crack a nut, we have little sympathy with this complaint, and feel that the BSI pledge that it is "committed to ensuring that the athletics facilities at the PRSA are used and available for all" has a hollow and meaningless ring about it.

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