Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

Today is a day of hail and farewell, as we trot out some of the mixture as before … then bid our readers adieu.

Stop Press entry at foot of page

It’s a point that we’ve made before in discussions about the influx of migrant workers into Boston – but it still needs making. This week’s Boston Standard tells us that almost 2,500 people from overseas registered for national insurance numbers between March 2010 and March this year “to allow them to work in the borough.” Other statistics show that there has not been that number of jobs created  to justify these figures. Therefore, some registrations must be for ancillary purposes - the most common being entitlement to benefits and allowances. Registration helps places like Boston because it influences the borough’s grant from central government, but there is still a huge disparity between the unofficial numbers of those who live in the borough, and official statistics. This is why Boston is always strapped for cash.
Boston Labour Party has a seductive map on its website suggesting a proposed route for the town’s bypass (pictured below, left.). It skips across the A17 and the A52, south to Wyberton, curves north to Fishtoft, Haltoft End and Hill Dyke before heading south again to the point where it started.
In an ideal world it would be just the job. But being the old pedants that we are, we worked out a distance for the route, which came to 15 miles, give or take. The heavily dumbed down plan for the proposed Lincoln eastern bypass – which makes it single rather than dual carriageway – will cost £98m for just 4.88 miles. At today’s prices the Labour route would work out at almost £300 million.  We think we can fairly say: “Forget it, Boston.”

Talking of spending, we noted the pictures in the local papers of a “free” event at the Hussey Tower, where visitors could see demonstrations of traditional brickwork repairs and tour the tatty monument. We’ve mentioned cost  quite a bit in the last couple of days, and wondered  … could this “free” event be the “masterclass in traditional repair” for which Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire received a lottery grant of almost £50,000 a few months ago?

In August we were told there would be seven Boston borough council committee meetings this month. Then the Performance Review committee meeting scheduled for the 8th vanished without explanation, and we believe that another may well follow. This is an interesting departure for our new regime – cancelling meetings without explanation when so much needs doing. Perhaps it is intended as a perverse form of economy.
Boston Borough Council continues its ongoing interest in putting the cart before the horse with this year’s voter registration forms. People who don’t spot the box at the top of the page -  and it doesn’t stick out a mile - will doubtless wade through the forms and fill in all the details before learning that if the information is unchanged, it can all be done on the internet, or by ‘phone. As the form points out – using either of these two methods save the council time and money. Perhaps the information could be made more prominent next time around.
Not only is the Market Place refurbishment taking its toll on local businesses, it’s also going to rain on one of the Boston’s few open air parades. We note that this year’s Battle of Britain Sunday service and parade will be rerouted  through Pescod Square, and that as a result, the saluting base  will be located in the loading bay near WH Smith.  Surely, someone is pulling our leg?  Can’t we sling up a podium big enough for four in a slightly more appropriate and respectful location? It could even be big enough for three, as, whilst we can understand the presence of the Mayor, RAF Coningsby’s Wing Commander Al Seymour, and Boston Team Rector Robin Whitehead, we are somewhat at a loss to see why the council’s “strategic director” needs to be up there with them.
We now have our very own optical illusion as a logo in Boston Borough Council reports. You know what we’re talking about – illustrations where you decide whether a drawing is of an attractive young lady or an old crone.

So how do you see the one above? We guess it’s meant to indicate partnerships and togetherness. But we’re afraid that we see it in a drowning not waving capacity - a long line of people clinging together for dear life to avoid sinking beneath the choppy blood red waters beneath.
Something we’ve mentioned on occasion is the poor quality of the postal service in some parts of Boston – where it seems that posties deliver when they feel like it, rather than being motivated by the accumulation of letters at the sorting office. A reader who complained after a particularly breathtaking piece of Royal Mail incompetence e-mailed us with a possible reason. After repeatedly brushing aside all complaints, Royal Mail's final response declared: "Please be assured that we take letting our customers down seriously ..."

We note that the controversial Roll of Achievement that was once so prominently displayed has disappeared from the home page of Boston Borough’s Council’s website.  It is still lurking in the bowels of the borough’s computer – but must be searched for to be read. The roll was always somewhat anomalous – listing some people and not others, and in obvious conflict with other parts of the site listing notable Bostonians. The space on the website has been taken by a Leader’s Message – which we take to be the ruling group’s paean of self praise for their first 100 days. We admit a frisson of fear as we read a line by Councillor Peter Bedford which declared: “My aim is to take this authority back to where it was in the past ….”  Fortunately, he added the words “-  a council well thought of and respected throughout the East Midlands.”   Although we consider the first half of the statement to be more likely, we trust that the aim  expressed in the latter will be as true as that of William Tell.
The leader also goes on to say: "Talks are starting with our neighbouring authorities about possible joint working schemes, helping each other to save money and get the best value we can for you all." We hope that he is not thinking of a reunion with the South Holland/East Lindsey partnership, with which the borough was on the brink of forming an alliance when financial problems forced its withdrawal. At the time, it was said that if Boston decided at a later date that it wanted to join the club, it would be at whatever the going rate was. The item below, from the Rotten Boroughs feature in this week's Private Eye, suggests that the price might be high, given the apparent absence of interest from anyone else in the year since the operation started.

Whilst it is always praiseworthy to support our local services, a line has to be drawn somewhere.  In the letters page of this week’s Boston Target, the “Letter of the Week” was headed “Care at the Pilgrim was just exemplary.”  It referred to the stay of an elderly relative in our controversial local hospital, and added: “We can honestly say that she could not have received better care anywhere.” Think about it. You can honestly say no such thing - unless the person in question has received treatment in every hospital in the country, and you had compared them all.
Ahead of our last item, we note that the Boston Standard’s weekly sales have slumped again – according to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation released yesterday.  In the first six months of 2011 they averaged 8,395 copies a week  - down 10.8% and among only 14% of papers showing a double-digit drop in circulation. Just when we were getting close …
Finally, the late Harold Wilson wasn’t kidding when he said that a week is a long time in politics.  After the recent e-mail that we mentioned in which the writer decided to remind us where we lived and cautioned us to watch what we wrote, our enquiries have established that our nom de plume is no longer what it was. We promised on more than one occasion that we would end our efforts to call the council to account if  we were “outed” - and decency dictates that we keep our word.  It has been our pleasure to write so many tens of thousands of words and to be read by an increasingly large readership over the past four and a half years. We had hoped that repeatedly sending a message to the "great and the good" might create an appreciation of their unique position and that they might use it to benefit voters. But in many instances this has not proved to be the case. We are sure that there are many in Worst Street will now breathe a sigh of relief, slap themselves on the back and go about their usual business of running a not very good council not very well, happy in the knowledge that no one will now take them to task - which we suspect is what this is really all about.  To misquote Harold Wilson: the weak are a long time in politics. Having said that, we are also pleased to have made many fine acquaintances within and without the council. One has already suggested that if enough people respond, we should reconsider our decision, and continue blogging – but obviously not under our present name. We are willing to give it a try, and if you would like to see some sort of blog continue, then please e-mail us. We have a target response figure in mind – but as we have said so many times before … we won’t be holding our breath.
But in the meantime, please keep checking our site for news …

STOP PRESS: We have already received a number of letters and comments regarding the above item, which will reproduced on the blog page tomorrow. In general, they are supportive of Boston Eye continuing on some shape or form, but more views would be welcomed before we take a final decision. We look forward to hearing from you.

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