Don't care BBI silent on vital roadworks

Talk about co-incidence .... just last week we found ourselves wondering when the first of the roadworks we heard about six months ago were likely to start.
Well, the answer seems to be ... soon.
A report to this morning's Planning and Regulation Committee of Lincolnshire County Council recommends conditional permission to widen a section of Queen Street in Boston as part of a bigger highways improvement scheme.
The idea is to slice off chunks of Aldi's car park to replace the traffic lights that lead to the supermarket with a roundabout, and to widen access at the second roundabout at the junction with Sleaford Road and West Street.
When the digging starts, it will herald the thick end of a yearsworth of roadworks on Queen Street, Spalding Road and Sleaford Road at a cost of up to ten million pounds - work which the BBI's Dear Leader Richard "Papa Dick" Austin says is another vital "step towards a bypass."
It's a step that many of us would rather not take, as the traffic problems it will generate will take us back to the bad old days before the traffic lights in that area were either switched off or re-phased.
Having said that, it might be possible to do the bulk of this first phase from within the car park, leaving a relatively short period to complete them - but that probably won't happen!
Incredibly at the time of the announcement in June, we were told that the work has to be done to show that it won't improve matters after all and thus demonstrate that the town does needs a bypass.
Councillor Austin said back then:- "The whole point is that we have got to do this. We have introduced a bus service which is taking a lot of cars off the road. We have got to encourage as much cycling and walking as we can, and if we still have a problem we can still push for a bypass. We can't push for a bypass without all this."
As we said at the time, we won't believe that the Into Town bus service "is taking a lot of cars off the road," until someone shows us the proof, and not claims it as fact, as is all that has happened to date. So far, the evidence suggests that the bulk of the passengers are concessionary users, who use the service because it is free, and who probably have not previously used cars to travel into town.
Despite all this, you might expect that the BBI would be trumpeting the news that permission for the first stage of the roadworks was imminent.
But no.
In fact, if you read the report you will be struck by one thing in particular.
The total disinterest of the Boston Bypass Independents ... it fairly leaps off the page.
As is the rule, various people and organisations are consulted ahead of the report's publication
Among them is the local County Councillor - in this case none other than Ramonde (Major ret'd or not depending) Newell, who, you may remember, actually disaffiliated from the BBI after his election and joined the Independent group in order to obtain a place on the Highways Transport & Technology Scrutiny Committee so as to press Boston's claim for a by-pass.
However, although he was consulted for his views on this scheme on 14th August, he had not replied by the time the report was prepared.
Similarly, Boston Borough Council - aka the Boston Bypass Independents - were consulted on the same date.
And guess what?
They had not replied by the time the report was prepared, either.
Need we add any further comment?

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