So little

for so much

Four down – one to go.

The latest of the five Placecheck schemes – the one for Witham East - has compiled its report on how the area it covers can be improved, and now all we have to do is sit back and wait to see what it contains.

Superficially, Placecheck is a good idea.

Boston Borough Council got its mitts on £100,000 to spend in five areas of the town thought to be in need of improvement. Each area received £10,000, with a further £10,000 being swallowed up on staff, admin and running costs.

Sadly, though – as is so often the case since the Boston Bypass Independents took on the reins of the council – the outcome of all this effort and expense is an insipid, nannying, goody two-shoes contribution to the community that fails to offer anything like good value for money.

A recent report told taxpayers that Placecheck has secured a wide range of “environmental” benefits to date – such as redesigned street cleansing routines, regular “local litter picks” and “physical environmental improvements.”

It is claimed that the Placecheck model supports neighbourhoods “and should have a positive impact upon local measures of how well our communities get on with each other and feel engaged in the democratic process.”

It does this by making residents feel safe and part of their community, “being healthy” and “creating a greener and sustainable future.”

What this boils down to – as we said in an earlier blog – is a series of cheap and convenient activities such “payback” projects where felons collect litter, gardening projects for school kids, tarting up local community meeting places, bulb planting projects, sport equipment, and more litter and dog waste bins.

Summarised in this way, it is difficult to see how Placecheck could swallow up so much money for so little result.

Certainly the issue is once that has exercised Better Boston Group Councillor Anne Dorrian, whose specific area of concern related to the Placecheck Project taking up the whole of the Community Development section’s workload, a situation of which council members were not aware. According to recent minutes, Councillor Dorrian felt there was a need to look at the budget and examine the value for money being achieved for the council.

We’ve taken a look as well, and feel that whilst all the money spent iks accounted for - down to the last pound of the £105,312 allocated – the matter of “value” does indeed require more detailed examination.

For instance, the wages bill of a community development assistant comes to £16,201 – a drop in the ocean as a proportion of the total.

But the costs of “Placecheck reports” – which started at a modest £450 a year ago - are now listed at £1,500 a time.

Yet again, a key player in all of this is the South Lincolnshire Community and Voluntary Service, which the BBI appears to have a soft spot for.

It took the decision to let it have one of the two empty shops in Strait Bargate at a peppercorn rent after spending a fortune on “refurbishing” them – and that’s on top of the £100,000 a year it reportedly gives to the SLCVS, which has assets of more than £360,000.

Our previous blog on this subject referred to one Placecheck area where they bought home security equipment – and we mentioned that this was something the police often did for nothing – without the need to pay for it!

And what’s the latest news on the borough council website? East Lincolnshire Community Safety Partnership is giving away support packs to give away to victims of domestic burglary in the Boston borough and East Lindsey areas.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested