Week ending Friday 1st October

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

Canute credit it? ... We thought we glimpsed the Beloved Leader granting an audience to one of our local paper hackettes at Wednesday's Environment Agency public drop-in to discuss the proposed Boston Barrier. Presumably he was telling her how - once he'd held back the tide - he planned to go for a walk on the water!
Rainy day blues ... Which is easier that you might think. This latest photo in our occasional series of what happens when it rains in Boston was taken  the other day after a fairly gentle shower....

It gets a lot worse after heavier rain, and we are surprised that it was beyond the wit of the Pescod Square builders to create a surface that drained properly rather than accumulate water during rain.  The rain is also accumulating in greater amounts in the tracks created by the Into Town buses grinding through Strait Bargate. But more worrying is the way the increasing unevenness is making it harder to walk without the risk of stumbling or falling. Expect some claims for damages soon.
Good cod! ... Fish Hill may as well be renamed now that the last of the fishmongers has gone. The Kime name has vanished after forty years on the site and more than 200 trading in Boston. What a shame that a town that boasts its own fishing fleet and fish dock now no longer has a fresh fish shop in ts centre. Yet another business driven out by, among other things, excessive rent rises by their landlord - Boston Borough Council. At the last check, the rent was £12,500 a year, which is a lot for such a trade to pay before stating to make a profit. The shop is also among the block the Assembly Rooms complex declared as “surplus” on the borough’s asset register. It is perhaps quite a happy coincidence, then, that it should become vacant.
Shopping frenzy ... Never mind, with three mobile phone shops in a row, and a new slot machine arcade said to opening in the former shoe shop next to Poundstretcher, what more could the town want? It’s not enough to simply give permission to shops to sell whatever they like. The time is long overdue to address the quality and variety of what’s on offer.
Free for all ... We hear that every councillor in the land is getting three free copies of a new magazine called "Elected.” The publishers say that it is “aimed at promoting best practice and innovation in public services.” So why are they sending to to Worst Street?
If a job’s worth doing ... In its desperate efforts to “communicate” with the punters, Boston Borough Council has its own Facebook page. We mentioned some while ago that it appears to celebrate inertia rather than anything else, and it seems that nothing has changed. Whilst it promises “This page will be continually updated” it then confesses “Boston Borough Council has no recent posts” - and when you check its “latest news” offerings that is confirmed by the fact that nothing has been added since January. A bit like the Leader’s message on the borough website, which is still wishing us a happy new year. It reminds us of the broken watch that is right at least twice a day. Give the leader's message three more months and it will be current again.

Thanks for reading Boston Eye. We’ll be back on Monday. Be careful out there.

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