Public information boards

The public notice boards around town are being taken over by the Bourne Preservation Society whose members plan to keep them spick and span and filled with topical material about organisations, events and information useful to both visitors and local people.

The present cast iron notice boards have been erected during the past ten years by South Kesteven District Council, elegantly finished in black and gold lacquer, and have become a familiar part of our street furniture alongside a number of public seats, ornamental railings, flower tubs, recycling bins and direction posts, all in matching livery that have provided an enhancement to our urban scene.

Until now, the notice boards have been administered by the council who have had difficulty in keeping them maintained with the result the announcement leaflets behind the glass have become outdated and often yellowed with age. The society plans to change all that and two of the notice boards, in the market place and at the bus station, have already been handed over and the others, on the edge of the Burghley Street car park and at the top end of Wherry’s Lane, are expected to come under their control shortly.

“We have free reign over content”, explained the society chairman, Jack Slater, “and we welcome material suitable for public display provided it is not commercial. Our plan is to show historic guidance information for visitors, town events from any charity or non-profit making organisation or major events from anyone provided they are of benefit to the community.”

There will also be innovations such as the trial page currently on display on the market place notice board in the form of a QR code, an array of black and white squares typically used for storing web site addresses or other information, that can be scanned by a mobile phone which takes you to the BPS web site giving information on your location and the places of interest around. This is new technology in action but traditional methods of dispensing information will not be forgotten and fixed guidance data will eventually be featured prominently on all of them.

Once the improvements have been completed the new boards will be launched officially with a suitable branding on behalf of the society and in the meantime the public are being invited to offer ideas for the effective use of these small spaces that are invaluable both for those who visit this town and those who live here.

Quick change for one of Bourne's public information boards.

There was some dismay around Bourne in July 2014 when it was discovered that one of the town’s public information boards was being used to advertise private property sales. This misuse was further aggravated by the fact that the notice board did not belong to the South Kesteven District Council who erected it but was presented to the town by the Rotary Club of Bourne to celebrate the club’s silver jubilee in 1992, an event marked on the front in embossed gold lettering and the distinctive Rotary wheel.

It originally stood in the market place but was replaced by a larger model when the area was redesigned in 2006 with the addition of ornamental railings and other street furniture and then disappeared but had recently been discovered stored in the chapel of rest at the town cemetery in South Road. The cast iron notice board was rescued by Rotary members and restored at a cost of £222 and then re-sited by the council at the west end of the new Wherry’s Lane development where it was intended to be used for its original purpose, that is of displaying useful information for townspeople and visitors with a section devoted to the work of Rotary.

But rather than displaying public information, the notice board was full of sale notices from the estate agents Newton Fallowell relating to the 14 flats which had just been built as part of the £2.2 million redevelopment of Wherry’s Lane and which the council was now trying to dispose of through private treaty.

A few days later, the content of the notice board was hastily changed to a background of pictures of the Bourne area until its long term future was decided. Although Rotary approved of the initiative of the Bourne Preservation Society in maintaining the town's notice boards, they insisted that the organisation’s logo remained on their own and that some of the display material continued to support their charitable work.

REVISED AUGUST 2014