The establishment of recycling centres around Bourne has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand these excellent facilities have helped salvage valuable materials such as paper, glass, metal and even clothing but however well intentioned these schemes are, they will not succeed unless they are run efficiently and that is not the case in Bourne. The containers are not being emptied as often as they should and as a result, the areas around them become eyesores overnight.In recent weeks, the containers in the car park behind the Post Office in West Street have been filled to the brim and subsequent intended deposits are left around the base and within a few days we have an unofficial rubbish dump that attracts vermin and creates a health hazard. The centre behind Wake House in North Street is less often used but the busiest containers in the Rainbow supermarket car park seem to be permanently overflowing. They are invariably surrounded by cans, bottles and newspapers because the containers are crammed full and never emptied regularly and with Christmas approaching we can expect to see the piles mounting over the festive season as they did last year because these sites are not being properly supervised. This is most unfortunate because there is enough rubbish already in the streets of Bourne without inviting more.
Youngsters from the Robert Manning School in Queens Road have been busy picking up litter in the vicinity in a sponsored "Dash for Trash" exercise by Year Seven students who gave up their time for a lightning clean up around the footpath along the route of the old Bourne to Sleaford railway line behind the school premises and in thirty minutes, competing teams collected 48 bags of rubbish. The event is expected to raise £1,000 for school environmental projects but it is a pity that it had to be held at all for you do not need an A level in logic to realise that it was the children from the school who dropped the litter in the first place. During term time, the route between the school and town also becomes a trail of fast food cartons, fish and chip wrappers, sweet papers and crisp packets as the kids head back to their lessons after visiting the shops for their lunch and casting their waste to the winds as they go. By the weekend, the pavements, grass verges and roadway and the school surrounds are littered with their waste. Perhaps the school will start sending out a few more "Dash for Trash" teams to clear up this mess on a regular basis each week or, better still, educate pupils against the evils of dropping litter and ensure that they know it is not only anti-social but also illegal.
The Hereward Group Practice currently based at the medical centre in St Gilbert's Road opens in new premises that have been built in Exeter Street on Monday, 7th December. The clinic, which already has 9,000 patients on its register, is an attractive building surrounded by landscaped borders and with fifty car parking spaces. It looks very grand indeed and we, the patients, now hope that the services offered will live up to these fine surroundings. An end to the interminable waiting for an appointment to see some doctors who are notoriously bad timekeepers would be a good start. Another welcome innovation would be for doctors or visiting consultants to carry out minor surgery once, twice perhaps three times a week that would cut hospital waiting lists at a stroke and end the necessity for a taxi, bus or car journey to Stamford or Peterborough. Modern clinics were intended to take the strain off the hospitals but the temptation for general practitioners to fall back on the referral system is too great for the family doctor who likes an easy life. We hope that the new premises will mean a renewed effort by the medical staff to make this practice one of the best in South Lincolnshire. After all, we are paying for it.
Workmen were out on Sunday morning installing the Christmas decorations on the Town Hall. Until now, there has always been a tall fir tree decorated with coloured lights outside this historic building but this has been moved to the Budgens' car park, a bad move and a perfect example of the old proverb "out of sight out of mind" because few people seem to be taking any notice of it. Seasonal bits and bobs that look as though they were bought from Woolworth's have been stuck on the front of Bryan Browning's 19th century structure and appear at first sight to be totally unsuitable but hopefully the event will exceed expectations when the lights are switched on and the illuminations will justify the effort of these men and machines who toiled for most of the day to put them up. Public money has obviously been involved here so let us also hope that it has been well spent and will stimulate additional Christmas trade and bring a little festive cheer to the town centre over the next few weeks.
Saturday 12th December 1998
We have had our first snow of the winter, a morning of flurries last Saturday and although it persisted in some shaded places throughout the day, most of it had turned to slush in the midday sun. It was still cold in the afternoon but that did not deter the annual visit from Father Christmas who arrived to switch on the lights in the town centre and meet local children in a grotto that magically appeared overnight in the Corn Exchange. There were also fun fair rides for the youngsters and the keen anticipation this has inspired in them will no doubt add to the strain on their parents' plastic cards before this festive season is over. The illuminations exceeded all expectations and drew large crowds as the police stopped the traffic through the town centre to give visitors a better view. Never let it be said that I did not once enjoy such things myself as a lad but I have since learned that expectation is the most enjoyable part of Christmas because our wishes are never ever fully realised. Robert Louis Stevenson got it right: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."
Mike Holden, secretary of the Chamber of Trade, tells me that the lights are provided by the town council and erected by volunteers from Bourne Lions. The only public money expended is for the electricity bill which is met by the council but the authority also paid for the new lights on the front of the Town Hall this year. The Christmas tree, however, was moved to Budgens' car park on the advice of the town council because the tree has been vandalised in recent years and because it might obscure the new lights. Mr Holden says that while the second reason may be valid, the first is not following the recent installation of closed circuit television in the town centre. He says that the tree should be a focal point for the Christmas celebrations and late night shopping in the town and the chamber intends to press for it to be restored to its old position next year.
The streets were full again on Friday evening for the annual late night shopping when North Street was sealed off to traffic from Burghley Street to the market place and so enabling visitors to wander around quite freely among the shops and stalls set up at the kerbside, many of them manned by charity groups and organisations. There was a real holiday atmosphere to this occasion which was enhanced by this freedom of movement without fear of being knocked down by a passing vehicle and so here is another obvious improvement just waiting to be made: the pedestrianisation of Bourne town centre. Town councillors take note.
Bourne is not to have its extra policemen after all. There was a chance that the town might be chosen as the headquarters for the south division command team under a major re-organisation by Lincolnshire Police and this would have meant an increased police presence in the town, not that this would have put more constables on the streets which is what we would all like to see. Grantham has been chosen instead because the cost of converting first floor offices at Bourne police station to accommodate the additional desk-bound officers would have been prohibitive at around £50,000 with additional travelling costs for support staff. John Kirkman, a member of the police authority and also one of our Bourne councillors, deplores the decision as being unfortunate. "It would have been nice to have senior officers on our doorstep so we could buttonhole them to sort out any problem", he said. Oh no, Councillor Kirkman! We do not need any influx of top brass into Bourne but it would be nice to have some more junior officers on our doorstep, i e ordinary bobbies on the beat, to prevent any problems in the first place.
Town centre management in Bourne is currently being discussed by South Kesteven District Council and the topics under scrutiny are crime and disorder, an improvement in the quality of life in the town and new ways of attracting more shoppers. Council officers are to work in partnership with the business community to find fresh ideas on how to best improve the town, including discussions with the Chamber of Trade, and all will be put down in an inevitable final report. This appears to be yet another talking shop in the making but will anything be done when all of this official chin-wagging is over? Traders in North Street claim that business has been badly affected by the sight of empty and derelict shops and now we hear that another is to close in the New Year and that could suffer the same fate unless a tenant is found quickly.
The buildings in North Street which have been empty for some months are boarded up and have started to attract graffiti and the frontage of one has been covered with multi-coloured patterns in an attempt to hide its dismal and unsightly appearance but the experiment does not work and the buildings remain a total eyesore, hideously unattractive and likely to deter anyone driving through who might be thinking of stopping off in the town. It really is time that something was done to either refurbish them or at least tidy them up and give them a more presentable appearance. The Mayor of Bourne, Councillor Don Fisher, has said that nothing can be done about these properties because they are privately owned but that is not true. The very council that is busy working on a new image for the town is responsible for ensuring that all business premises conform to the planning regulations. These buildings in their present state do not and the owners should therefore be instructed to put their premises in order. This should be among the first priorities that go into the report.
Saturday 19th December 1998
The traffic lights in the town centre failed last week and it suddenly became apparent to all what some of us knew already: they are totally unnecessary. Instead of chaos and gridlock, vehicles kept moving with drivers observing the simple rule of giving way to traffic from the right. Engineers attributed the failure to a fault in the electronic control system which is designed to keep delays at the crossroads to a minimum by the use of sensors that record the volume of traffic coming and going. This is an elaborate and sophisticated system with a staggering twelve sets of traffic lights at this crossroads which was both expensive to install and is costly to maintain, especially when it breaks down and engineers are called out for repairs. A permanent roundabout would be a one-off capital outlay with little further maintenance and what is more is makes good sense.
One man who observed the smooth flow of traffic during the breakdown was West Street trader and town councillor Ray Cliffe and his verdict was unambiguous. "The cars flowed through very easily and when the lights came back on the traffic started to build up again", he said. "It is like that whenever they break down. I always said they should not have installed them in the first place." This then is yet another subject that should be given priority in the town centre management study currently being undertaken by South Kesteven District Council. Perhaps Councillor Cliffe will ensure that it is.
The new 15,000 square feet supermarket planned for Exeter Street by the grocery chain Sainsbury's has been approved by South Kesteven District Council's planning committee and so its construction is now inevitable. Whether we need another supermarket, and one of such size, is a debatable point and it is quite likely that we shall see one of our existing supermarkets close as a result and those that remain will suffer in trade turnover for Sainsbury's is a mighty retail giant of great selling power. But the shopper will benefit because competition means lower prices and there will certainly be bargains aplenty in the weeks after the grand opening of this new retail outlet. Pity about the car parking though because traffic chaos in this part of town is inevitable, especially with the recent opening of the new Hereward medical centre just across the road.
Meanwhile, as one new shopping facility is planned, an old one closes because the town's longest established retailer with 141 years of service to the community is to shut at the end of the year. The three storey red brick building roofed with blue slate on the west side of North Street is a time capsule of the grocery retail trade from past times where over the counter service has survived the pressures of the supermarket revolution. The business known as John Smith of Bourne was founded in October 1857 by John Smith, a strict teetotaller who sang in the choir at Bourne Abbey for fifty years, although were he to appear in the shop today he would probably be quite shocked because it now caters for the sale of wines and spirits, beer and cider and has also boasted more than 200 brands of malt whisky, giving it a listing alongside the London stores of Fortnum and Mason and Selfridge's in the "Malt Whisky File". The business is still operated by the Smith family in the traditional Victorian fashion, supplying products at the quality end of the market, and the store exudes a gentlemanly air of courtesy and service in an age when the self-service supermarket reigns supreme.
Customers are greeted by the aroma of freshly-ground coffee and the scent of spices, unhurried personal service, scrubbed floorboards and a polished counter worn smoother over the years by thousands of daily transactions, a delightful change to the hurly burly of the checkout counters at neighbouring streamlined stores while the window displays and metal advertising signs remind us of a bygone age when our daily life proceeded at a far slower pace. The business is run today by John Smith, great grandson of the founder, and his wife Judy, but here the line will end because they have decided to retire and their son David has his own career as a computer consultant and there is no one else to look after the shop. John Smith of Bourne will therefore close on December 31st and we wait expectantly to find out what will happen to these historic premises which have been sold to a developer and so the future is uncertain.
This web site has attracted much attention from around the world since it was launched last summer, from the United States and Canada, from Australia, Malaysia, Russia, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, and of course from Britain itself and I am gratified that without exception the messages we have received have been full of praise for our efforts in putting Bourne on the global map and also for keeping those expatriates in faraway places in touch with the town they love. But this week came an email from a lady in Israel that made us doubly proud of our efforts. I will not give her age other than to say she is a senior citizen and although her main language is Hebrew, her English is quite competent enough for her to express her feelings. She wrote: "After supper, I opened your web site. I sat before my computer until after midnight and I saw all of your photographs and read your descriptions. I have no words (in English) to depict my excitement. It was a trip to Lincolnshire, learning about its history and knowing it better, than visiting it. Your web site must be a work of years? I forwarded it to my son in Denmark. The little town of Bourne looks really ancient, like pictures from a book of Dickens. It seems that many places are kept like this, with care."
I often feel that I am working in a vacuum and then up pops an email such as this from cyberspace that assures me someone is taking an interest and so I am spurred on to greater effort and this message is praise indeed.
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