Week ending 8th July

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

The vexed issue of green waste collection in Boston was at last addressed by a committee meeting last night with a pilot scheme that could pave the way for something more permanent. If Lincolnshire County Council gives the scheme the nod, a 14 week collection period will start on August 1st. It’s long overdue. A survey across Lincolnshire showed garden waste accounted for 11.3% of rubbish - whilst in Boston it was 31.3% and later rose to 38%. The proposal will cover around 40% of the district in the first instance - but as with all these things, though, nothing’s ever easy. The explanation of the scheme declares: “half of the chosen households will have their collection on a ‘residual’ waste collection (ie green bin) week, with the other 50% being collected on a recycling (blue) week. In other words if your garden waste collection happens to be due on a residual week, you will present your green (residual) and blue bins together-the blue bin being filled with garden waste - and on the blue bin week, you will present only your blue bags containing recycling. Therefore, half of households will have two collections in one week and one the next and vice versa.” We’re sure that it will work flawlessly! Boston’s two English Democrat councillors were the only opponents of the scheme, which Councillor Elliott Fountain dismissed as a “publicity stunt” with the Conservatives “just wanting to be seen doing something.”
We were less than impressed with former Conservative Councillor Myles Larrington’s “defence” for claiming his full £2,380 allowance despite only attending two borough council meetings in a year. Readers may recall that when he took up a job in Westminster, an official Tory statement at the time said: “Councillor Larrington will continue to attend council meetings in Boston as required - but has declined to accept any remuneration or related expenses in the future.”  He told us: "I can assure you that I will not be an absentee councillor – my new employer … is willing to be flexible around key or important meetings of the council, so I shall continue to attend as and when required.” So was he only “required” for a mere two meetings? Mr Larrington’s “defence” says: “As for the fact that I only attended two meetings in twelve months, at the end of the day, I complied with the six month attendance rule and therefore met my legal obligation to attend.” And also the legal requirement to claim that which he apparently declined, presumably?
We note a new columnist has joined the ranks of the borough council’s monthly bulletin. Taking up the nannying mantle that epitomises the borough these days, “Litter Champion and smoker Rachel Lauberts” tell readers: “I recently attended a meeting at the borough council offices where someone complained about Boston being turned into a giant ashtray and what could be done about the cigarette litter on our streets?” The article, which runs to the thick end of 500 words, turns out primarily to be a free puff (if you’ll excuse the pun) for a pocket dog-end storage device called a Stubbi – including a price guide, phone number for the company and website link. Is promotion like this really the council’s job? Incidentally there seems little doubt from her credentials that Mrs Lauberts was an unsuccessful Boston Bypass Independent candidate at May’s elections. Are we witnessing an early opening salvo for the 2015 campaign, we wonder?
Another name from the recent political past appears in the newspapers this week in the form of Spencer Pearson – a former shortlisted BNP “activist of the year” who stood for the Boston Bypass Independents in the Staniland North seat, last May. His latest claim to fame? A court appearance on a charge of being drunk and disorderly. Recalling the trials of the former BBI administration and its councillors where the demon drink was concerned, we can only say “phew!”
A lot has been said in the past few days about the spending of quite large sums of money on various projects. English Democrat Councillor David Owens – who sent us the childishly-drawn plan for a £10,000 garden feature in Central Park – has been looking at other areas of the borough’s finances. His enquiries have uncovered that the annual cost to the council of membership of the Local Government Association – “a talking shop for local authorities and of no real value to tax payers in my opinion” - came up with the following spending figures: 2007/08 £16,249.84, 2008/09 £13,485.72, 2009/10 £10,000, 2010/11 £8,180, 2011/12 £ 6,825. We’re not entirely clear whether the figures include some sort of annual membership fee, but certainly the lion’s share of any spending must go on the LGA’s annual conference, which costs around £1,000 a head for delegates to attend – excluding travel and subsistence. It’s a lot of money - £54,740.56 over five years – and we would be interested to know whether anyone would be bold enough claim that it is really value for money. Moving on, Councillor Owens reports on his blog that translation services mopped up another £22,000 across five years, and “International Links and Town twinning” – something that we hardly ever hear of these days ran up a stonking £27,836. The grand total? More than £100,000. Quite rightly, Councillor Owens asks: “Is it any wonder that the council has been struggling to balance the budget when it is haemorrhaging taxpayers’ money on such items?”
On a slightly less expensive note, now that the council has got around to publishing the correct list of its spending over £500 for May, we see an item for slightly over £700 for a “finger buffet” provided at the Building Control Awards evening - despite the fact that the event was purportedly sponsored by a local company. There were only eight categories in the event, and given that there were probably three in each to choose from, we can’t imagine the guest list was that great in number, which makes the spend seem excessive. Not only that, but when events like this are held in the early evening, there is every chance that the attendees have probably already eaten  and therefore had no need of seven hundred quids’s worth of buckshee grub. Probably good news if you took your Tupperware along.
It’s good to see that no effort is being spared to gain the best quality recruits for the work on the Market Place renovation scheme. The photo below is from a recruitment advert on the Directgov Jobsite - aka the JobCentre.

click on picture to enlarge it

The text tells us: “This is an IMH vacancy operating as an employment business. Experiecned (sic) ground workers required to work on city centre contract, main duties to include kerbing and block paving. Machines tickets prefered (sic)and recent working references required.” IMH Recruitment is a South Yorkshire based recruitment agency covering the industrial, commercial, construction, transport, private health care and education sectors with “well over 30 years experience in the industry” – but perhaps not in the use of English. And since when was Boston a “city?” What a shame to see such a slapdash opener before a single stone has been turned.
And talking of the Market Place project, the following painting has come to light which shows what the original perimeter wall to Boston Stump looked like around 1840–1850.

It’s a highly impressive piece of stonework and makes us wonder why the plan does not provide for the restoration of the feature – rather than ripping a chunk out of the remaining listed wall to save pedestrians walking a few feet. After all, this is supposed to be in the name of heritage. Isn't it?
Finally, a dictionary moment for you. The word maverick – used by Boston Borough Council Leader Peter Bedford about his former Tory colleague Carol Taylor, who has left the party to join the Independents – is defined as ”an unorthodox or independent-minded person. A free thinker.” Its antonyms are: “conventionalist, pedant, stickler, traditionalist, conservative.” What more can we say?


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