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Better management, better budget?
MAY I recommend readers look at Councillor Lenton's full budget speech on Boston Borough's web site. It contains a lot of good news for hard-pressed council tax-payers.
A zero tax increase was ratified at the council meeting to match the 0.1 per cent cost of living. This brings to an end 10 years of council tax rises which have often been well above the level of inflation and over the years have hit pensioners and people on low incomes very hard.
With our limited budget, the main theme of this administration is to give better value for money with only a marginal affect on frontline services. Staffing costs make up over 90 per cent of our costs, and since BBI took office the number of posts has been significantly reduced from about 355 to 295. This has mainly been achieved by slowing down recruitment, not filling vacant posts and the redeployment of staff.
We are very keen to keep redundancies to the very minimum and this we have achieved. I am particularly grateful to the staff for their continuing co-operation in this drive for better value for money in the council.
Another key element of this budget is to continue the drive to improve traffic flow through the town by every means possible. This includes road improvements, better bus services and working hard on the long-term aim to get a bypass.
This year's budget also marks the launch of the practical phase of the Sports Strategy that has been in the planning and preparation stages for the last 18 months.
Work refurbishing the Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre will begin in the autumn, hopefully giving work to local people and boosting the local economy.
We are also continuing efforts to strengthen relations between the different parts of our community. I believe that gradually Boston people are feeling better about this issue and that it is a good news story.
I also must emphasise that Party in the Park is only postponed for this year. Over the last six months great efforts have been made to find a private operator to run it at no cost to the council tax-payers. This has not been possible to date, but the effort continues.
Finally, Coun Lenton's budget is aimed at helping most households in the borough, not just a few.
RICHARD AUSTIN
Boston Borough Council leader
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Weather for Boston, Lincolnshire
Tuesday 07 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: -7 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -6 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: East
