A pig’s ear –

but where’s

the silk purse ?

A year ago it all it looked so rosy and bright – with this proclamation by Boston Borough Council: “It’s all systems go for a bright new future for leisure services in Boston. National leisure services operator Leisure Connection has won a prestigious contract from Boston Borough Council to run the town’s Geoff Moulder Leisure Complex and the Princess Royal Sports Arena.”
We raised an eyebrow at the time.
We raised an eyebrow again last week, when rumours circulated suggesting that aspects of the leisure services plan were not going well, and that Leisure Connection was getting cold feet about parts of the deal.
In an effort to snatch some sort of victory from the jaws of defeat, Boston Borough Council has announced that “it will be business as usual at Boston’s Geoff Moulder Leisure Complex.”
Business as usual, that is, with one major exception – “Leisure Connections … will not now be taking over the centre.”
The planned £2 million refurbishment has been slashed to a paltry £284,000 - and some of that will go towards car park improvements and “energy saving measures.”
And, in a deal with the Princess Royal Sports Arena that is sure to delight everyone, the council has agreed to subsidise the hapless Boston Sports Initiative to the tune £176,000 in the 2011/12 financial year, £88,000 in 2012/13 and nil subsidy in 2013/14.
Whilst it was in deal signing mode, the council also entered into a 99-year lease with Boston College, which will see the Peter Paine centre and grounds transfer to the college, which will take over responsibility for maintenance, repair and operational costs.
The Peter Paine Sports Centre is, according the borough council, a “public facility that is operated as a registered charity for the benefit of the Boston residents” – a situation that will now be no more.
The lease specifies that the college will have use of the Peter Paine centre and grounds on weekdays, with public use available at “locally-comparable rates” during the evenings and at weekends
The Peter Paine facilities include squash, badminton, basketball, tennis, table tennis, cricket nets, five-a-side football, netball, indoor hockey, indoor athletics, gymnastics and roller skating.
In many cases, the loss of these facilities in the week will not be compensated by a visit to the PRSA – membership of which is beyond the pocket of many local people.
Boston College applied to the Skills Funding Agency for the maximum grant available - £1 million - which according to reports last year was to expand and improve its sporting curriculum.
As well as the refurbishment works at Peter Paine, the college plans to build a new teaching block on the Rochford site.
But there’s more …
The college will obtain the Peter Paine site at a peppercorn rent and decided that once “these works are implemented the college should close the De Montfort campus and dispose of it as soon as possible.”**
So it seems that the benefits to the college are manifest.
It gets the site at a knock down rent, government cash to do it up, and then the bonus of flogging off an unwanted campus for what will doubtless be a handsome sum for a generous plot of land in a key development area of the town.
Why do we feel that the taxpayers are getting the rough end of the stick in all of this?
One question that also remains unanswered in the borough’s statement about new look leisure services is whether or not Leisure Connection is taking over at the PRSA.
The borough doesn’t say either way.
But if Leisure Connection is running the PRSA, then why is the borough continuing to subsidise the present management of the Boston Sports Initiative for the next two years?

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

FOOTNOTE: Whilst we are often critical of the role of our local newspapers in Boston, we have to salute the reporters from the Boston Standard and Boston Target at last week’s full council meeting where all of this was scheduled for discussion in secret.
They demanded to stay for the leisure paper as it was in the public interest – an argument that lasted for ten minutes - with David Seymour of LSG standing up and arguing with the Mayor to accompanying jeers from the public. Eventually the Target’s Graham Holmes joined in – leading to a cave-in of sorts when the Chief Executive Richard (“I am delighted to write an introduction to the new Boston Bulletin which I hope will help the workings of the council become ever more transparent and open,” agreed to hold a press conference last Friday at which this pig’s ear was finally unveiled.

** Boston College - minutes of meeting of the Corporation July 20th  2010

Week ending 4th March

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

At a time when poor NHS service is making the headlines, it was worrying to read that after a visit to the Pilgrim Hospital, the Care Quality Commission found that the United Lincolnshire NHS Trust was not providing effective care plans. Inspectors found patients were not always given enough support to help them eat and drink, and that steps were not being taken to ensure that people received effective, safe and appropriate care to meet their needs. Care plans did not always reflect the needs of patients and risk assessments in relation to falls, pressure sores and nutrition did not always provide enough detail or contain clear actions to minimise risk. The trust has until May 31st to make improvements to avoid possible prosecution or closure of services. But the question that must be asked is how long has all this been going on?

Star of the show in the latest issue of Lincolnshire Council’s Pravda – County News – is Boston North West County Councillor Andrea Jenkyns. Beneath the tantalising headline “Meet your member,” the full-page piece trumpets the councillor’s achievements. As far as political activity is concerned, the feature mentions the establishment of the Boston North West Action group in October 2009 - and the group’s campaign to make their neck of the woods alcohol-free by incorporating it into the borough’s designated areas where booze is banned. The group meets regularly and is clearly enthusiastically supported, and a recent report says “we now have many businesses, local councillors and parish councillors supporting our campaign. We even had a meeting with the Boston Borough Chief Executive to discuss how we are going to progress with it.” However, as long ago as July last year, the idea was firmly rejected by the BBI – so no progress will be made until after May at least. Has Councillor Jenkyns thought of standing for her local ward at the borough elections, we wonder. Membership of both borough and county councils is a valuable belt and braces as far as influence is concerned. We shall have to wait and see.

What will they think of next? Lincolnshire Police are apparently now sending firms that are victims of burglary DIY finger-printing kits to check their staff as suspects to save police time and money. We’ve heard about giving people the finger – but this is surely state of the art! Not only that, they cops want volunteers for other jobs, too. Chief Constable Richard Crompton told the News of the World: ‘We are interested in doing some work with volunteers, training them to assist at very, very low-grade forensic scenes. It’s not policing on the cheap, it is people volunteering to do their bit within society.” Of course.
Reader Steve D was struck by our piece in the week about the tarting up of Central Park. “Is it just me or do I detect a veritable frenzy of pointless but 'press luring' project activity by the council as the first rays of May's dawn forebodingly glimmer on the horizon?” he asked. “I endured a rather disturbing dream last night - an Ingram-like statue of Councillor Austin erected in the centre of the park, funded and project managed by Boston BID with throngs of "out-of-towners" being bussed in by "Into Town" to pay homage to the great man. Predictably and somewhat pleasingly, the statue fell off its plinth (shoddy funding and project management.)”
We’d hate to be accused of bias against the totally useless Boston Standard after we published its circulation figures last week which showed yet another slump. The figures for the equally totally useless Boston Target appeared a couple of days later and show the Target disposing of 20,331 copies a week - a fall of 17.4 per-cent, compared with the Standard’s slump of 12.6 per-cent to 8,756. We say “disposing” as the Target still gives papers away. It speaks volumes for a product when - even if you give it away - people still don’t want it!
A change of tack by the Standard this week in its bid to keep the town as high up the obesity league as possible. After weeks of giving away artery-clogging sausage rolls and jam filled biscuits, the paper is now offering a free pint of booze to every reader. What next? A toot of smack? The mind boggles.
The begging letters are out again to get people to take part in this year’s Big Boston Clean Up. Over the last three years volunteers have collected 29 tons of litter. Whilst we have nothing but praise for the community spirit that such a stunt engenders, the fact remains that during each nominated week over the past three years around ten tons of litter have been laying around Boston’s streets – which sounds like an awful lot. As we mentioned yesterday, one of the most common requests from residents in Placecheck areas is for additional effort to clear litter from their streets. Does this say something about the quality of service being provided by the borough’s cleansing department? Yes, it does.

On a similar note, whilst news of improvements in Boston’s Central Park was very welcome, one part of the story was definitely not for the faint-hearted. “Twenty years’ worth of discarded seed was recently removed from the aviary, in places three feet thick,” we were told by the latest Boston Bulletin. How on earth the little critters managed to fly is beyond us. Perhaps as well as an annual Big Boston Clean Up we should start a Big Birdhouse Clean Up as well.




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A costly way

to say it

with flowers

We complained the other day about the excessive way that we are nannied by Boston Borough Council – and another excellent example is in the Placecheck scheme.
Five run-down areas of Boston were selected to benefit from the project, which is now three-quarters complete.
Like many projects run by the council – and very similar to the way Boston BID operates - Placecheck spends tons of money on administration to achieve a relatively minor effect.
A total of £105,000 has been made available – of which half is swallowed up by administration costs.
Residents in each of the five selected areas are invited to come up with ideas for spending £10,000 on ways to improve their particular neck of the woods.
We can’t say whether or not strings are being pulled, but the projects invariably have a familiar ring and similarity to them.
You can guess the sort of thing …
“Payback” projects where felons collect litter, gardening projects for school kids, tarting up of local church premises used for community meeting purposes, bulb planting projects, football and basketball equipment, more litter and dog waste bins, and in one case provision by the police of home security equipment - a service they often provided freely until someone came along and offered to pay for it!
Some of these projects involve employing a probation service worker to supervise the offenders employed on litter picking duties – whilst another wants to use them for bulb planting on a roundabout.
If some of these duties sound familiar, it is because they are.
Many are tasks already carried out by other organisations as part of the paid for services they provide … often as a statutory responsibility.
Litter collection is a good example. We pay for it through our council tax as one of the few services provided by Boston Borough Council – and now it is being charged a second time through the Placecheck kitty.
The other thing is that most of the projects seem to be redolent of the era of Disney’s Main Street USA. – where people lived in an ideal, neighbourly, polite and litter free community.
By all means let’s redecorate our church halls – but will it bring in more people?
Who stops to marvel at a roundabout glowing with colourful flowers? If they can’t be eaten they’ll be stolen, and if a passer-by is in their car, driven over.
And the days of youngsters kicking a ball about in the park have long been kicked into touch by the chance to tackle Beckham of Rooney on a Playstation screen.
We’re not saying that this is a good thing – quite the reverse.
But the whole Placecheck project smacks of busywork and spending money for the sake of it.
What next? “Rolling out Placecheck to a number of rural areas of the borough is the next logical step and is something which officers are currently scoping,” says a council report. “Engaging and empowering communities revitalises areas and improves lives, Placecheck is therefore a real opportunity for our residents to shape the areas in which they live.”
As long as they use flowers to do it.


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Boston “struggling”

as BID income

takes a hit

Despite promoting the impression that everything in the garden is lovely, is seems that behind their gung-ho façade, business members of Boston BID are less than sanguine about the organisation and the town’s prospects.
Our piece on Monday about the Business Improvement District’s ill-judged idea for a festival costing tens of thousands of pounds to celebrate Central and Eastern European culture brought a rapid response from readers.
We heard of fears that that the town was struggling - and that the BID should try to encourage smaller businesses back into the centre.
This is a good idea, for which funds are available – although that fact appears to have been forgotten.
The £52,000 government grant to Boston Borough Council to counter the run-down appearance of the town centre caused by empty shops included £10,000 for a grant scheme to offer new retailers occupying empty shops funding towards business rates in their first year after start up.
Nothing has yet been heard about this – despite the fact it could be an excellent way to help small businesses gain a foothold in the town centre and bring a little variety to the shopping experience currently on offer.
Having said that, there has also been no sign of the £12,000 allocated for artwork to disguise empty shop windows being spent either.
BID “members” – let’s not forget that their membership is compulsory, and they face a criminal conviction and fine if they refuse to pay their levy – are concerned at the amount of money being spent on the Town Rangers and BID management.
The Rangers account for almost half the levy and the wages of the BID Manager brings the total to 70% of the BID’s £135,000 annual income.
But then, according the “business plan” £6,000 is allocated to pay for “adverts/print/website and internet” costs, plus £9,000 for office accommodation and ancillary costs and £3,000 for “admin assistance.”
By our reckoning, that comes to £110,000 out of the £135,000 available – which doesn’t leave much of a balance to actually do anything.
At its inception, it was claimed that match funding would equal the £135,000 wrested from “members” – but this is not happening.
Not only is money not coming in via this route but we hear that it has in fact dried up almost completely - with the belief that the remaining three years of the BID’s life will see little, if any, further funding.
And again, despite claims that the BID is mending relations with members, we hear of complaints about lack of response by the BID Manager to enquiries and frustration when suggestions that could bring improvements to the town were ignored.
Complaints extend throughout the BID’s top structure – to the effect that there is no relationship between the members and the board, creating a sense of isolation.
Even worse, members apparently feel that there is no sign of any marketing of the town and that they are not involved in any discussions.
All in all, the feedback from the people who pay the bills for Boston BID does not paint a pretty picture.
It was back in July 2010 that angry members rose up in revolt at this incompetent organisation, and the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce representative was charged with assessing public feeling about winding up the company.,
An answer was promised within three months.
Has his watch stopped?

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Buggy off!

There are too

many nannies

in the park!

It seems like only yesterday that we were urging more activities for Boston’s Central Park – but that’s because it was only yesterday.
Co-incidentally, the latest issue of Boston Pravda – the borough council’s monthly bulletin – tells us that the park is undergoing its biggest makeover in the past decade.
It’s certainly not before time, because anyone who lives the town and has visited the park across the years will have noticed the steady decline of what was once a delightful place to walk or relax.
Whilst we have to welcome anything that sees an improvement in an amenity such as Central Park, we also have reservations at the nature of the improvements being made.
The reason is that they reflect the borough council’s relentless ambition to nanny its residents – to make them fitter through exercise or healthier eating.
For example, the park projects include spending £20,000 “as part of the council’s mission to improve the borough’s health and wellbeing,” on adult keep–fit equipment and a “special item” for the under-fives.
In addition, the grammatically inept “Grow2Eat” project will eventually see an area
of the park developed with fruit trees and raised beds of vegetables to help spread the healthy-eating message, and join the council-backed “Cook4Life” project to promote healthier lifestyles. Fine – or rather Jo1Egood - if they’re not nicked as soon as they are ripe enough.
As if all that was not enough, members of the council-run healthy walking group are keen to end one of their strolls at Central Park so they can then enjoy a spot of gardening - and members of the government family-support Surestart group want to have a go too!
The fact that kids like to play in parks hasn’t been overlooked, with plans for a £40,000 project for an “adventure” addition to the play equipment including a 20-metre zip wire, and other things whose nature eludes us.
How long, we wonder, before we hear the first complaints of rowdiness, as the borough’s “yoof” let off steam?
The is also the promise of new fencing to “guide” visitors - an interesting euphemism, given that as far as we are aware, the idea of fencing was to keep people out.
Whilst on the one hand it’s good to see improvements to the park, we repeat what we said yesterday – where is the fun?
Frankly, the idea of pitching up at Central Park after a five mile walk to spend an hour digging a vegetable plot so that we can enjoy a raw carrot for our tea is not our idea of a good time.
We mentioned yesterday that forty years ago, hundreds of people turned out to cheer on a pancake race. Who’s to say that they wouldn’t do it today?
Why aren’t we encouraging small groups to take space in the park to show what they do?
Could we not have a bandstand from time to time?
Or how about a book festival, a toy festival, an antiques fair, an occasional children’s entertainer? – the opportunities are endless.
In the old days, the only nannies you met in a park were pushing young children around in a pram. These days they come disguised as well intentioned but misguided councillors.
First and foremost a park is an area for recreation, enjoyment and entertainment – and nothing like that is being proposed as part of the new look.


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