Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

We had a very civilised e-mail dialogue with Councillor Mike Gilbert after our comments at the beginning of the week about his appearance on BBC local radio. “On the whole I stand by most of what I said, and make no apology for trying to normalise Boston's reputation nationally - so that when we have an incident we don't get swamped by the nation’s media for all the wrong reasons,” he said. “Boston is a wonderful town and one that deserves better publicity than it has got in the past. Population numbers and funding of services is critical to this and, as was stated on the BBC, this is the major issue - and not specifically the nationality of that population increase.” Councillor Gilbert was also good enough to seek a definitive answer to our differing views as to benefit entitlements for the migrant community, and subsequently wrote to say “This is the response I have had: ‘Just to clarify, all EU nationals, and this includes A8’s must have a NI number to gain employment or claim benefits. Some EU nationals are entitled to benefits even if they are working - for example working tax credits or child benefit. Those who are unemployed may be entitled to Jobseeker’s Allowance but have to evidence this to the DWP and comply with regulations.’ He added: “I believe the facts are clearer in your mail but essentially both say the same thing, as of the first of May 2011, A8 migrants have the same rights as the rest of the EU residents and can claim benefits. Clearly my knowledge was out of date. Thanks for clarifying this aspect of what I said; how embarrassing!!” We thank Councillor Gilbert for checking things out – and hope that those readers who accused us and some of our contributors of being ignorant and racist about benefit entitlement – and those were among the politer terms used – might now have the decency to apologise.
Someone, somewhere must think that we’re a bit stupid here in Boston. On Wednesday, we commented that the “live” webcam from the Boston Big Dig that “refreshed” automatically every minute, had in fact been showing the same scene for days on end – and that the picture was not of the dig, but of piles of gravel. The picture suddenly disappeared and was replaced by another – again with the same claim to being “live” and regularly refreshed. A sharp eyed reader alerted us to the same problem as before, so we looked at the webcam at 7pm last night and again at 9pm and it was unchanged. It was the same at five this morning, when we took the screen grab (below.)

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Judging by the crisp shadows going East to West it was taken early in the morning. But who’s in charge of all this, and why has it gone so pear-shaped? What a silly question when you note the involvement of Boston Borough Council and Boston College. And as for CIA systems of Kirton, who “install the best CCTV surveillance and security alarm products” – all we can say is that we’ll never trust CCTV again!
One of Boston’s leadership triumvirate, Councillor Michael Brookes, is busy arguing that the experimental green waste collection scheme is not as chaotic as everyone says. He was responding to criticism from local Labour Party branch secretary Pam Kenny, who has launched an online petition for a proper service using dedicated brown bins to collect the waste. Already, 45 people have signed the petition, which closes at the end of December. Despite Councillor Brookes’s reassurances, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. Consider this comment from one of our readers. “I thought that you may be interested in the progress of the new garden waste collection. Argyle Street, early Tuesday morning. First truck arrives, blue bags loaded and all blue bins checked. Letters placed on bins filled with non-compliant contents. Later in the morning, a second truck arrives and empties compliant bins (garden waste) leaving the large number of non-compliant bins still full. About lunchtime a third truck arrives and empties all the non-compliant bins. As the householders of the non-compliant bins would arrive back from work and find a letter telling them why their bins had not been emptied when in fact they had been, they will be somewhat confused and obviously repeat their error again in two weeks.” We like Mrs Kenny’s idea better. You can support it by clicking here .
Still with Boston’s Labour Party, it has called for a public enquiry by the Health Secretary into the ongoing problems at Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital. A statement says: “They are saddened to hear that around 100 student nurses have been removed from Pilgrim Hospital after the Nursing and Midwifery Council expressed "serious concerns" about it, but what are the real reasons for them being removed? The comments continue:” This comes on top of the hospital being criticised last month by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which said it had not met required standards in 12 of 16 categories. It is only weeks since our local MP appeared on television and said he wouldn’t send any of his family members to the hospital, so we call upon the Tory-led government to call a public enquiry to find out what are the real problems at Pilgrim Hospital. Boston Labour Party wants the people of Boston to feel they have a hospital that provides quality services and a place where their loved ones feel safe when they have to stay and receive treatment.” This is a sensible call to make – and it’s not the first to come from this minor opposition party within Boston Borough Council. It begs a question of our own … why isn’t the controlling Tory administration – which works so closely with the NHS in Lincolnshire - voicing similar concerns?

It’s good to find there’s a sense of humour in Worst Street after all. Following our suggestion last week to rename the place Bash Street because of all the argy bargy that’s being going on recently, one councillor has come forward to take up our challenge to nominate members of the council as characters from the cartoon strip. “I wish to nominate myself as Toots (right,)”  writes Independent Councillor Carol Taylor. “She is described as a tomboy who can be bossy but has more of a heart than her any of her friends. She claims she fancies Dennis the Menace and fires a valentine card at him using a toy rocket. She is also further described as 'one of the boys' - and considering that I am now an Independent, I would be honoured to receive this accolade!!! PS I'm dreading who you think would be Dennis the Menace!!”
We remarked the other day on the slow progress of work on the Market Place regeneration scheme. A reader who spotted the advert pictured below suggests that this may well be due to a shortage of workers.

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The Jobcentre ad was posted on 19th July – a week after the work theoretically started, and two weeks after the first advert appeared, which suggests a shortage of takers for the work. Again, it does not bode well for the work to be completed on schedule.
The term “damning with faint praise” was exemplified this week in a letter to the press from former BBI councillor Sheila Newell. She congratulated the new council on giving away the Peter Paine sports centre to Boston College – but pointed out that it was agreed by the previous administration. That remained the tone of the letter throughout until a point near the end, when Mrs Newell commented: “The new borough council could not have chosen a worse time to increase their councillors’ basic allowances by more than 85%.” Strange. According to the minutes of the former
Boston Borough Council on 17th January, when allowances were discussed, Mrs Newell’s council colleague and husband Ramonde said that increases in allowances had been put off for the past four years, and that a decision had to be made at some point. He moved a proposal that the recommendations of the Independent Remuneration Panel be accepted in full, with a 20% reduction for “public service discount.” This would have seen allowances soar from £2,378 a year to £4,399.78. Only four councillors voted for this suggestion – including Councillors Raymonde and Shelia Newell - after which it was decided to put off the decision until after May’s elections.
What a good idea to cover the unwelcoming walls of Boston Borough Council’s atrium in the municipal buildings with paintings by local children. It certainly cheers up the bleak, institutionalised look of the place. But we’re less than sure about the idea of billing it as “Boston’s newest, FREE of charge, public art gallery…” Art gallery it isn’t, and how else could it be other than free – unless the council's next big idea to ease the borough’s parlous financial situation is to charge citizens to visit.
The traditional Victorian garden planned for Boston’s Central Park is getting some publicity this week. It will comprise four herb gardens with a water feature in the middle, and cost around £10,000. Regular readers will recall the furore when a drawing that looked as though it had been done on the back of a fag packet was used to illustrate this expensive project.

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According to the plan, the main features requiring construction are the pergola-type structures leading to the proposed water feature. In the interests of value for money we took a look around the internet, and discovered that the pergola pictured below could be bought for just £269.

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That would cost exactly £1,076. Presumably the labour costs are in-house and therefore either reasonable or non existent. So where is the other £8,924 going? Perhaps on Boston’s own version of the Trevi!
We often comment on the lack of a visible police presence in Boston. So we were pleased to hear from a reader who told us that he had seen not one, but two, police community support officers on their cycles patrolling the area.

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Apart from the fact that such sightings are so rare, what made them stand out was the fact that they were cycling across the Hospital Lane footbridge - where of course, cycling is prohibited!
We usually find our comedy cuttings in the pages of the local “newspapers.” But this week’s example comes from unlikely source – the website of the long established Boston business of J Carr and Son.

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“Hand on roll….” Now there’s a well established Boston tradition for you!

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