Will Into Town buses drive May Fair to its doom?

“Roll up, roll up! All the fun of the fair!” is the traditional cry .... though should it be: “Good evening all! Pay Up, Pay Up! Who's been a naughty council then? This is a HOLD UP Give us yer money”
What’s going wrong with the police?
Are they being forced to abandon “policing for all”?
Is the time coming when our ID card will show if we have paid our Council Tax? Only if it does, will they help us.I can understand their wish to charge for their services at "private events" such as at football matches.
But will clubs have to pay if the bobbies decide to protect public order and escort fans from, say, the railway station to the ground?
And from my past observations, there is rarely a huge police presence at the May Fair anyway.
Their main difficulty is lack of manpower. The good burghers of Boston would be horrified if they knew how thin the thin blue line can be, especially at weekends.
Even if the police win their case, is there any guarantee that we will see any improvement in the service? Will the payments just pay for police overtime?But back to the May Fair.
Several years ago, when the council pulled the funding and closed the increasingly successful Christmas Market, a cartoon of a council meeting appeared in the Standard.
The caption was, I think, “And next year we could cancel Christmas altogether – humbug anyone?”
All we need to do is change ‘Christmas’ to ‘the May Fair’ to make it relevant again. Have we a council of Scrooges? Is Boston council reverting to its Puritan roots?
I cannot, though, understand why the council needs to increase their charges by over 35% to break even. Previous councils always aimed to break even, so fairground rents were based on loss of car parking revenue, the cost of providing refuse collection and other services to the fair and their caravans and the officer time spent in administration.
The showmen even took on the task of collecting the rents to save council expenses.
I know that the first two services cannot have increased their charges by that amount so does this mean there was an increase in officer time to the tune of 35% - over £10,000 - in one year? Or is there a hidden agenda? Please read on.One very important matter has not even been mentioned.
How are our Into Town services going to cope with a town centre and Bargate filled with fairground stalls?
We lost our Continental Market because no one took into account the IT buses. Have they considered that the Market Place and Wide Bargate are closed to vehicular traffic for much of the time?
Even our "small" coaches, when trying to make their way through the crowds, would pose a danger.
Part of West Street, too, is closed to accommodate market stalls.
What happens to the services that use this stretch?
Will the bus service be used as an excuse to close the May Fair too?
Will Scrooge make a comeback in May? Is the bus mightier than the Fair?
What do you think?
Let’s have another public consultation – I promise no one will take any notice!

- SCANNER

Write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence if requested.

Wild Dorrian raps borough's ineptitude

We are grateful to the Boston Standard for this week's insight into life behind the closed doors of Boston Borough Council.
Unfortunately, the picture painted is that of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, whose appearance remained unchanged over time, but whose portrait hidden in the attic became increasingly hideous.
The Standard was "mistakenly" sent copies of reports to the council's standard's committee concerning former councillor Guy Curley and Better Boston Group representative Anne Dorrian.
We recommend that your read the newspaper to get the full story.
The case of Mr Curley exposes an interesting (to say the least) attitude to members of staff and fellow councillors.
Councillor Dorrian, meanwhile, heaps opprobrium on the council staff after the Standard report and discloses some worrying information about the reliability of the borough machine.
"Our officers are paid very good salaries, comparatively speaking, and I'm not impressed by this catalogue of cock-ups. I think that the Chief Executive has some explaining to do," she complains.
" I have already been to two meetings in the last week where councillors have discovered that they have been given the wrong information by officers - and we're not talking about spelling mistakes or typing errors, we are talking about important information that councillors rely on to help them make the right decisions for the people of Boston."
Eighteen months ago, the Boston Eye was on the receiving end of Councillor Dorrian's wrath in the shape of a stern e-mail from a senior member of the borough's legal department following a lighthearted comment by one of our contributors.
We would like to be a fly on the wall when Councillor Dorrian pays the Chief Executive a call!.

Write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence if requested.

Never mind the inconvenience ... the book must be obeyed!

It's a miserable day out there, and as it's a market day, parking spaces in the town are at a premium as usual.
So three out of ten to whoever failed to use his or her initiative when it came to declaring the Green available for parking.
Only a handful of stallholders have turned up and around 80% of the car park is empty.
But that doesn't impinge on the jobsworth mindset one iota.
A mobile skip is blocking the car park entrance and notices are in place elsewhere telling people to keep out - forcing them to park even further away for no reason other than "that's what it says in the book."

Write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence if requested

Does council fear Stump will take money and run?

Tonight's cabinet meeting has to grasp the poisoned chalice of which voluntary groups to help with grants. The council already funds Boston Citizens Advice Bureau and the South Lincolnshire Community Volunteer Service and has been helping Boston Community Transport, better known as dial-a-ride ... but this latter contribution is not ongoing, and at an earlier debate it was declared poor value for money. Also on the table are bids from three other organisations - Blackfriars, Boston Stump and Centrepoint. It is being recommended to fund an appeal by Centrepoint in full because of its vital role in the current financial climate.

And the cabinet is being offered the following options:

1: Part fund more than one of the other schemes and suggest a split. 2: Cease funding Boston Community Transport and fund other bids.

3: Cease funding all other schemes making a revenue saving. The Blackfriars bid is for £50,000, but even this level of help will leave them in deficit. Centrepoint needs £6,000 to help cover rising costs.

And the Stump is appealing for £12,000 to enhance the Church’s tourism work in line with the 2009 celebration of 700th anniversary.

Recently we were told that Blackfriars would be offering townsfolk everything from "warbling to wrestling" and we question whether hurling money into this bottomless bit to provide such cultural gems is really worth it. And don't be fooled by the results of a so-called "survey" which showed a majority favouring giving cash to Blackfriars. These surveys usually total few participants, and, as we saw when a website petition was started on the theatre's behalf a year ago a small number of luvvies make a lot of noise.

Centrepoint provides a regrettably necessary lifeline in these troubled times, and doubtless eases some of the responsibilities for helping the homeless that would otherwise fall upon the borough council at a much higher cost.

Granting the appeal by St Botolph's would be a good thing to do in its significant anniversary year, and the church has also withdrawn an ongoing appeal for £11,000 towards its insurance cover for this year.

Interestingly, the council is legally obliged to give the church £30,000 per year for the chancel upkeep. - a requirement which goes back to medieval times, and which the borough is trying to wriggle out of.

The decision facing the cabinet is a classic judgement of Solomon.

For what it's worth, we think that dial-a-ride - whilst a useful service - is becoming unaffordably expensive. To part fund it would mean more reductions in the service which would make it even less cost effective.

We have no problems funding the Centrepoint appeal, and the organisation does not routinely put its hand out for cash - this is its first appeal for a couple of years.
Blackfriars is another money pit like the PRSA and should be avoided.

We feel that not to help the stump would be bad PR in this special year, and the net increase being sought is only £1,000. Not only that, but we suspect that the council will seize the opportunity to withdraw funding towards insurance costs in future years as it has not been sought this year.

But could the council fear that the church plans to do a runner with the money?

If not, why else does it refer to St Boltophs in every one of the seven references in the report?This is clearly lack of knowledge rather than a one off typo - and reminds us of the recent website naming of Sir Thomas Meddlecott rather than Middlecott.

More seriously it makes us wonder what hope is there for a council whose staff cannot even spell the name of its most famous landmark correctly.

Write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mail will be treated in confidence if requested.

Your chance to say "Into Town bus service is great"

What is probably the penultimate step in the move to turn Strait Bargate from a pedestrianised area into a bus route has just been announced by Lincolnshire County Council
A so-called review of the service, by "independent" consultants, has already begun, to look at all aspects of the service, including operational efficiency, route suitability, passenger feedback and the views of the public, businesses and other groups. They have also carried out "mystery shopper-style" exercises.
The public consultation runs from 9th February, to 8th March. Surveys will be handed out in Boston and can also be picked up at the borough council offices and the town's library. It will also be available on the Boston Transport Strategy website at www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/bts
The county council press release quotes the ever-growing passenger figures as a clear spin to show the benefit of the service to people, but even without that, we doubt that the "consultations" will be declared anything other than resoundingly in favour of the Into Town bus service.
It has to in order to save political faces in Boston and Lincoln.
We have said before, and we will say again, we are not opposed to the Into Town bus service.
What are are wholeheartedly against is the way that buses run through Strait Bargate six times an hour, herding humans aside as if they were sheep or cattle, and polluting what should be a pleasant shopping ambiance with noise and fumes.
Surely there must be a way to run the service and leave Strait Bargate alone.

There was, of course, a protest by a handful of councillors last June (see photo above.) But after achieving their fifteen minutes of fame via local TV footage, a sound bite or two and a piece in the local papers, they lost interest, fell silent, and have never been heard from again.

It's very sad.
So far the news has not broken on the borough council website, which was unavailable for most of Sunday due to maintenance, but we hope that it appears there as soon as possible to give people their chance of a say in what is laughingly claimed to be local democracy.

Write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mail will be treated in confidence if requested.