£5,000 for hopeless visitor site

- and who knows

how much to plug

somewhere in Exeter?

Yesterday we looked at some of the areas where Boston Borough Council spends its – or rather our - money, and came up with some interesting and unusual items.
Another - which there wasn’t room to mention yesterday - was a contribution of £5,000 towards the running of the Visit Lincolnshire website – but the council’s spending list doesn’t say whether this is annual, or quarterly, or what.
Lincolnshire County Council took on the running of this website after funding was withdrawn from the quango of the same name which previously ran Visit Lincolnshire.
Hopefully, this is an annual charge – because assuming similar contributions are being made by the county’s six other district councils, then Lincolnshire County Council is raking in £35,000 for running a small website within its huge internet presence. Nice work if you can get it.
As for value – a search for Boston on the website generates a so-called 118 entries, although many of these are in neighbouring local authority districts, and a large number appear to be adverts for accommodation and the like.
A random check of the site shows just how hopeless it is.
The Boston Beat one-day music festival is still listed for Central Park next month – even though it was cancelled weeks ago.
The Mill Inn on Spilsby Road appears in the index as being in South Holland.
Boston Farmers’ Market is billed as a weekly event and apparently located halfway down Threadneedle Street.
Whilst Boston Tourist Information Centre in the Guildhall is listed, its severely restricted opening hours are not.
And although we mentioned some time ago that the Boston Community Showcase was not listed on the site, it is still conspicuous by its absence.
What seems clear is that no-one at Boston Borough Council is tasked with checking whether this website is doing its job properly – but when County Hall sends in a bill for £5,000, the cheque wings its way to Lincoln.
Frankly, to pay that much money for such indifferent service is unforgivable.
Someone from Worst Street needs to give Lincolnshire County Council a kick up the backside – but we know that won’t happen, don’t we?
Also on the subject of indifferent service, Boston Borough Council’s website carries a link to another site called locations4business.
The organisation calls itself “The Inward Investment Portal” providing “a complete, free and indispensable business-to-business resource that every company will turn to when deciding where to locate their business operations. In turn, we plan to be the site where every economic development agency will want to be seen.”
Whilst the service is apparently free to business – there is presumably a charge to local authorities such as Boston for having an entry.
Click on the link to the borough council “gallery” on the locations4business site, and you will see the following

click on photo to enlarge

If you look closely, you will see an aerial photograph of the Market Place – but, mysteriously, captioned Marsh Barton.
Would you like a clue?
Marsh Barton is Exeter's largest trading estate, supporting over 500 diverse businesses including showrooms, builders merchants, tool and plant hire.
Yet again, we ask: What is the point of paying for services to “sell” Boston - but not checking to see whether they are delivering what they are supposed to?
In recently months it has been said more than once that Boston needs much more by way of promotion and publicity.
Why not start by chasing up these existing sloppy “providers” and getting them to do their job properly?
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