Week ending 22nd April

Our Friday miscellany

of the

week's news

and events

We’d love to have been a fly on the wall at Monday’s full meeting of Boston Borough Council. Not only were the BBI given a sound thrashing over the Discretionary Rate Relief issue, but some members of the BBI actually voted and spoke against their leader, Richard Austin. We are told that even his wife and fellow councillor Alison voted against him, which caused quite an outburst in the chamber! We expect there was a bit of an atmosphere on the Austin tandem as they pedalled their way back to Wyberton afterwards.
Still with Monday’s meeting, we were disappointed that the bid to reinstate the old system for selecting the borough’s Mayor was lost. We say lost, rather than defeated, because the meeting split equally at 13:13 on the call to select future Mayors on length of council service rather than the blatantly political system of nominating and voting for the postholder. A tie means that the Mayor has the casting vote, and Councillor Peter Jordan – the sole BBI member to benefit from the changed system – voted against the proposal. What a sadly missed opportunity to demonstrate the fairness, independence and absence of politics that the office of Mayor is supposedly famous for – especially given the fact that at its last council meeting some BBI members at last demonstrated that they had the guts to defy the leadership.
As if all this was not enough, apparently the best bit of the evening occurred beyond the public gaze. It seems that tempers flared in the Mayor’s Parlour with Councillors Richard Dungworth and Jim Blaylock involved in a major altercation during which observers commented on seeing two of the reddest and angriest faces they had observed for a long while ... We’re told that the choice of words was also “quite enlightening.”
In these cash-strapped times, we would have hoped that our masters might have given more thought on how they use money. A total of £1.7 million is being spent on a project called Routes not barriers, which will include a £600,000 replacement of the appalling eyesore known as St Botolph’s bridge, which links the bus station and the Market Place. Whilst we have no problem with that – the bridge has been a disgrace for years – we would question spending £560,000 on a “multi-user” route between Boston and Hubberts Bridge and another £275,000 on improving the village slipway and boating facilities. It it’s very politically correct – and in times when cash is plentiful ticks all the right boxes for leisure and fitness et al. But, hands on heart, how many people do you think will ply the “multi-user” route before it could be deemed to be worth the money.
Talking of which ... We noticed that the highly expensive gallery which forms part of the pointless “community hub” that the BBI frittered so much government grant money away on, was closed on Wednesday. It was market day, and one of the sunniest of the year. Just the sort of day you would expect such a public facility to be open for business. First they waste our money, and then they give us the finger.
We have never stinted in our praise for the Big Boston Clean Up as a piece of social engineering, but yet again it underlines the fact that the money we pay in council tax to collect litter is not being properly spent. If almost 1,000 volunteers can collect 28 tons of rubbish in a week, what has our Environmental Services department been doing? Similarly, all an amnesty for private landowners will do is encourage them to let their rubbish accumulate again for another year. And, as the council’s photos of the land behind Joy Paine Close show, the culprits dumping their litter are clearly just throwing it over their garden fences. A few quick prosecutions would probably do much to stop it happening. This is the core of the problem. What Boston needs is a better litter collection service, and a more robust system of prosecuting offenders – when did you last read of a case coming before the courts? All the big clean up does is ensure that Boston is virtually litter-free for one day a year. We would like to see that situation all the year round.
Students of vexillology - the scholarly study of flags – were doubtless quick to spot the front page error on this week’s Boston Standard. “Free Royal flag,” boomed the list of this week’s buckshee offers … picturing the Union Flag, or Union Jack as it’s more popularly known.

The “Royal” flag, of course, is more commonly known as the Royal Standard (no relation) and is completely different in appearance. At least the Standard refers to the flag correctly on an inside page, but how many people get that far…?
Finally, have a good Easter. We’ll not be publishing on Easter Monday, but will be back as usual on Tuesday 26th.

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