Week ending 27th August

Our Friday miscellany of the week's news and events

Parking up the wrong tree ... Parking problems caused by visitors to Pilgrim Hospital are highlighted in Conservative Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire’s ever-entertaining blog. However, we think he’s wrong to suggest that they are caused by a knock-on effect of the hospital’s high car parking charges. Recently we had to attend the Pilgrim on a regular basis, and noted that even though visiting hours begin at 2pm, the car park was full to overflowing as early as 1-30. If you drive past even earlier than that you can see the same thing, and we think that a combination of two things is at the heart of the problem. First, staff are using the main car parks in colossal numbers, and secondly - although the rules clearly state that only two visitors are allowed at a patient’s bedside, there are often as many as half a dozen - and you can bet they arrived in at least three cars. A quiet word with the hospital could go a long way towards solving the problem. Councillor Singleton-McGuire also tells us that the police and PCSO’s refuse to issue tickets for dangerous parking, “on the basis of being compassionate to the vehicle owners visiting patients."  Let’s hope that this compassion doesn’t end in a serious or possibly fatal accident as could easily be the case. This police are simply being lazy and not wanting to court unpopularity. If people are parking dangerously, they should be ticketed and fined.
Floody hell ... Boston - the town of blocked drains - keeps adding to its score each time the heavens open. Our latest picture - sorry if it’s a bit hard to make out - shows water covering an entire carriageway on one of the town’s busier roads.

And one of our readers tells us that Strait Bargate was also awash during the week as shoppers were forced to paddle their way past the QD shop. We don’t write all this stuff for fun, you know, The idea is that someone, somewhere in a position of responsibility and authority thinks that issues like this are important enough to report to the relevant authorities for some sort of action to be taken. What a shame none of our councillors or other officials seem to care.
Doing it by numbers ... Lincolnshire is one of a handful of areas in the country set to test out the new 111 phone number for non-emergency medical queries aimed at people who "need help quickly and can't wait for an appointment with your GP or don't know who to call.” Numbers, numbers everywhere. How are people supposed to decide whether to use this new number or NHS Direct? According to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, dialling111 will "end the confusion over what services are available when." We suspect that it will cause even more.
Dial what? ...Talking of numbers, we were amused by a line in the local papers asking people to ring Boston Police Station on 0300 111 0300. We’d lay money on you ending up talking to someone who’s never heard of Boston, and is probably working 40 miles away in Lincoln. Hands up if you yearn for the days when local meant local.
How time flies ... This time last week, we pointed out that the link to the website promoting the much vaunted Boston Showcase community event was broken. It seems that our observation fell on deaf ears as seven days later the situation is unchanged. Earlier in the week we also highlighted the pitiful absence of promotion of local events on Boston Borough Council's website. As far as the showcase is concerned, the site still bars visitors from accessing the link. Not only that but it doesn’t mention it in its What’s On diary for September - although it finds room for  the Burghley Horse Trials and a beach hut event on the coast. Boston Mayflower gives the showcase a plug on its website - but fails to mention when it is taking place. Thanks go to failed Labour parliamentary candidate Paul Kenny for that one. Ironically this mass indifference comes in a week when tourism portfolio holder Councillor Richard Dungworth is fluting that an increase in visitor numbers is down to “the hard work done by Visitor Lincolnshire and Boston Borough staff...”  Not from where we’re sitting.
They still can’t get it right ... On the same subject, earlier in the week we pointed out the omission of details of tomorrow’s Fake Festival from the borough council's what’s on diary. To the council's credit, attempts were made to include it at this late stage but, as is so often the case, the result turned into something of a farce.

See what we mean? Having said that, a “Boston fake Alford craft festival market” might well draw the crowds in future years.
Damned if you do- damned if you don’t ... It’s an ironic comment on the world of local politics that a letter to the local press praises former Councillor Tony Austin for apologising for his part in introducing fortnightly wheelie bin collections - but at the same time speculates that it may be a ploy to curry favour with voters ahead of next year’s local elections. Why people are so mistrustful of our local councillors completely baffles us!
As old as you feel ... Talking of being baffled, we can’t quite think why a report on the forthcoming open day at the town’s Victorian cemetery refers to Herbert Ingram - one of Boston’s famous historical figures - as “Boston's Old Man.” Poor old Herbert drowned in a shipping accident in the United States at the tender age of 49. Aside from founding the Illustrated London News, Ingram was lauded locally for bringing fresh water to the town. Had he lived, he would have seen the borough's blocked drains spare him the trouble.
They never lern ... Last’s week’s spelling lesson has gone unheeded by the Boston Target. Despite our drawing attention to a fete worse than death advertised in the paper last week, up pops another one in this week’s issue. Pay attention now:- an event usually associated with the word “garden” is spelled “fete” - not “fate.”

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the Bank Holiday. We'll be back on Tuesday.



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