Saturday 4^th February 2012

The writing is on the wall for the historic Town Hall that may soon be passing into private ownership after two centuries of public service. The building will become redundant with the creation of a new Bourne Community Access Point and The Local newspaper reports (January 21st) that although Lincolnshire County Council which owns it will try to find other uses, it will be put on the market if none can be found, a scenario forecast by this column six months ago.

The Grade II listed building has been the centre of our administration since it was erected in 1821 but is now being phased out, along with the public library in South Street, as part of the £200,000 project to concentrate all council services at the nearby Corn Exchange, a move that is being heralded by South Kesteven District Council as being in the best interests of Bourne.

It is widely believed the change is being made for purely economic rather than practical reasons, to save money on running, maintenance and overheads, rather than make services more accessible for the people, and the cynics are already whispering that the sale of these two properties was on the agenda long before the term community access point was ever thought of.

Nevertheless, we are powerless to do anything about it now, the consultation process being criticised as inadequate in some quarters coupled with a climate of public indifference, and so it is too late to change things and we must depend on our councillors to make the right decision. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and when the new facility comes on stream next year, we will find out if the Corn Exchange has sufficient room to accommodate all of the various organisations tipped to be allocated floor space and whether it will operate as efficiently as the current arrangement but the indications are that everything destined to go there will be slimmed down to fit.

Before exploring the financial implications, we must first establish who owns what. Lincolnshire County Council claims the town hall and the public library and South Kesteven District Council has the Corn Exchange while Bourne Town Council owns nothing. All have been paying rent to each other for the space they use and although this basic system will remain, the small print details will change under the new arrangement.

LCC will benefit from the sale of the town hall and the public library and end the payment of rental for the register office premises at the privately owned No 35 West Street while SKDC will no longer have to pay for the space it uses at the town hall, collecting rent instead from those who use the Corn Exchange. There will also be a saving for the county police force if, as expected, they are given a corner in the community access point, because they can then close the police station on West Road although the new arrangement will mean the payment of rent to SKDC.

Other income for SKDC will come from whichever organisations are given space, notably from LCC for the public library and the register office, while the Citizen's Advice Bureau is also among the favoured contenders, although there are many others in the running because centralisation through the community access point is seen by our local authorities to be "a good thing".

You do not need a PhD in economics to realise that the money involved all comes from existing sources and is merely being shunted around between the various authorities like an elaborate game of pass the parcel, an arrangement that will be of absolutely no real benefit to those who pay the council tax. The only monetary advantage will be from the sale of the town hall and the public library, but this will go to the county council to help fund its massive staff of 12,000, the largest workforce in Lincolnshire, by maintaining their salaries, pensions and holiday entitlements in the future, not to mention the allowances and expenses for the 77 elected councillors.

In fact, this is a perfect illustration for the case of abolishing the present labyrinthine, unwieldy and costly three-tier council system, in favour of a unitary local authority with overall control which would make life simpler for everyone and at the same time reduce staffing levels, cut public expenditure and the council tax at the same time as well as releasing other properties for sale. If such a change had been addressed by national government in the past, there would in all probability have been no need for a new Bourne Community Access Point today.

In other towns where the town hall is being sold off, Louth in North Lincolnshire for instance, local community groups have been offered the chance to take it over and run it themselves as a heritage project, thus securing the preservation of the building for the future, although this is unlikely to happen if the motives for disposal are pecuniary, as appears to be the case here. But even if Lincolnshire County Council did adopt this philanthropic approach, recent experience in Bourne provides little encouragement for volunteers to undertake such a scheme.

The future of Wake House, currently owned by South Kesteven District Council, is still in limbo despite the persistent endeavours of Bourne Arts and Community Trust, who have been sitting tenants since 1997, to obtain a full repairing and insuring lease to enable them carry out much needed maintenance on the building which is showing serious signs of disrepair. This tussle has been going on since their last agreement ran out in 2005 and there is still no sign of a satisfactory arrangement, the council having added fuel to the fire by putting the property on the market in the meantime.

At the other end of the town, the cemetery chapel in South Road still stands idle while the Bourne Preservation Trust awaits agreement on a lease from the town council to enable members begin restoration work with the intention of bringing the building back into useful life. Their dossier on how it could be saved was drawn up and presented in April 2008, outlining proposals for the work and future management. Since then members have been active in seeking funds to finance their plans and in clearing undergrowth and debris from around the outside of the building preparatory to the major task but there is currently yet another impasse in the proceedings over the legal niceties required before they get the key of the door, one that readers of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and his vivid descriptions of the law's delays will be familiar with.

Both of these cases highlight not only the willingness of volunteers to take on daunting projects for the benefit of the community but also the frustration they are likely to encounter from bureaucratic indecision and, as some people think, plain obstinacy, because a successful outcome by the new tenants of discarded buildings would most certainly emphasise an official failure to care for them.

Local authorities have a duty to assist and encourage community initiatives because it is the people who pay their council tax to keep them in business and without this support, voluntary effort is likely to founder and with it the Big Society so loudly trumpeted by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, an idea that we seem to be hearing less of these days as official encouragement declines. While obstructions remain for both of our own local organisations, the future of their work remains uncertain but we would do well to remember that without them, the social and cultural life of this town will be the poorer.

From the archives: A clever capture. About four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, Mr George Coales, butcher, Market Place, Bourne, missed a loin of mutton that had been exposed for sale in his shop. He at once gave information to the police. At first, no clue whatsoever could be obtained as to the delinquent as no one had been seen about this time in the locality. Police Constable Fowler, who is well known throughout the district as an astute detective, speedily instituted a searching examination. At twenty minutes past four, he entered the Royal Oak inn in North Street and noticed four navvies busily engaged roasting a fine joint of mutton. By cautious inquiries, his suspicion fell upon one of them. Indeed, the chain of evidence was so complete that Constable Fowler charged him with the theft. The navvy frankly admitted it, saying it was no use denying his guilt as he had been fairly tracked down. At 4.30 pm, the prisoner was received into custody at the Bourne police station. The case deserves record as a smart piece of police work. - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 17th July 1891.

We were given a dose of good old fashioned provincial journalism by the Grantham Journal last week with a campaigning front page and extensive inside coverage over the controversial proposal by South Kesteven District Council to charge an annual fee of £25 for emptying green waste bins.

So many of our local newspapers are filled with anodyne stories of charity walks and church bazaars that councils and other organisations that run our affairs have a clear field to do as they wish without fear of reproach and it was therefore refreshing to read a report on an issue of some importance and the public’s angry reaction to what is obviously a very unpopular proposal.

Furious readers made no bones about what they thought about the additional charge which was condemned as a stealth tax aimed at good citizens anxious to do their bit for the environment and the headlines warned that the public had "declared war" on the council for its misguided proposal.

The newspaper said that the levy would victimise people with gardens and fly tipping would spiral out of control as readers complained that they were already paying too much for too little from the waste and recycling collection service and would not be “held to ransom". The newspaper's coverage was a model of indignation, claiming that everyone had been deceived.

"Duped into paying for THAT green bin under the illusion that the local authority wanted us to fill our eco-friendly receptacles with compostable mulch”, said the editorial, “when all the while the sneaky bean counters were planning to have us fill them with our hard earned CASH. It frankly beggars belief that under the Big Society banner, councils across the country are asking just a handful of their tax payers to plug their leaking coffers."

Who was it in the corridors of power at Grantham that dreamed up such an idea? Did they have no inkling of the furore it would cause? An annual £25 charge is little more than an increase in the council tax being ushered in through the back door and the authority has even had the audacity to say that anyone who does not wish to pay cannot claim the money back they were forced to pay for the green bin in the first place. "That was for the bin, delivery and administration", said a council spokesman. "The proposals are not to refund those who opt out of the service."

This outspoken protest by the newspaper is a valid complaint against South Kesteven District Council which must now take notice. It is an elected authority that exists to serve the public and should not take autocratic and unpopular decisions that are so obviously against the wishes of the people. The £25 charge is totally unacceptable because it penalises home owners for embracing an environmentally friendly service and will hit pensioners the hardest because they are the keenest gardeners. The message is therefore a simple one: the council must think again and certainly not axe the service altogether through pique.

Thought for the week: Among mortals, second thoughts are wisest. - Euripides (circa 480-406 BC), Greek dramatist admired for his remarkably modern attitudes and profound insights into psychology.

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Past diary entries during 2012
January

NOTE: All previous entries of the Bourne Diary from November 1998 to December 2011 
can be found in A Portrait of Bourne