March 2025

I hope you are making the most of the lighter evenings and enjoying the beauty of the Borough that comes with the change in season! We are lucky to have several lovely walking spots right on our doorstep. 

March has been another busy month, with a lot of activity in the heart of the town centre. Over the last few weeks, you will have noticed all the work going on with the demolition of the former B&M and Crown House. The process of demolition is highly controlled for safety and precision. UDCS Demolition and Lindum Group have been carrying out these works and they are doing a fantastic job.

The area is being cleared ready for redevelopment and to transform this area to enhance this part of the town centre. A new public park celebrating Boston's maritime and heritage links will bring the area to life. By improving the connectivity through Boston, the project will also enhance the town's historic landmarks and features.

Following the demolition of Crown House. a new modern building with retail space and affordable apartments will be built. The toilets and Changing Places facility are also being relocated there.

 If you are walking near the site, please remember short diversion routes are in place to enable these works and to follow the signs in place.

You can see the latest updates on this project on our social media channels as well as on the Rosegarth website

Also this month, I was invited by Platform Housing to have a look around the new affordable homes in the Kirton area.

Of these 41 homes, six are highly energy efficient properties, built to exceed the future homes standard. All these homes are now occupied. It was great to have a tour of the estate, see the different houses and speak to residents to find out the difference the homes are making for people in the borough.

This month I attended the District Council Network Conference in Old Windsor. The District Councils Network is a cross-party organisation made up of 169 councils and its remit is to represent and provide a single voice for all district and borough councils, like Boston. 

There were a number of guest speakers at the conference, including local government ministers Jim McMahon OBE MP and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage who was Leader of Stevenage Borough Council from 2006 to 2022.

Local Government Reorganisation - the Government's plan to abolish district and borough councils in favour of single-tier authorities - was the main issue discussed throughout the whole conference.

The guidance issued is that Councils need to do what is best for residents with proposals which make geographical sense as well as meeting the 500,000 population criteria. For Boston Borough, it is vitally important that Local Government Reorganisation works for our for our communities and ensures they are not disadvantaged due to where Boston is on the map.

The after-dinner speaker at the conference was the lovely Rev Richard Coles. He is known to many as a musician with the Communards, a writer, radio host as well as his appearances on Strictly and I'm a Celebrity. For us folk in Boston, we of course know him from when he served as curate at St Botolph's Church.

I managed to speak to Richard for a few minutes and he spoke very fondly of his time in Boston. In particular, he remembers the Fenside estate with great fondness and he passes on his best wishes to each and every one of you.

As well as in-person meetings, there are many I attend virtually. One of these was the Local Government Association's Children and Young People board. It discussed a number of projects in relation to regional care operatives as well as the National Youth Strategy. This 10-year strategy aims to address challenges for young people and create new opportunities. By engaging directly with young people they are helping to shape the services they need. For areas like Boston, these strategies are important to ensure young people in our community are  represented and have the same opportunities as others across the country.  

I was pleased to be join the monthly meeting of Fishtoft Parish Council, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had over £70,000 in their reserves.

Anyone can attend meetings of parish councils as they are open to the public and I would encourage residents to take a keen interest in how their council tax is being spent.

For the third year in a row, I joined the Muslim community and attended the Eid al-Fitr celebrations which comes at the end of the holy month of Ramadan. I was chuffed to bits to receive the gift of a bespoke Shalwar Kameez, this was given as a gift from a local family.

You can find a copy of my Leader's calendar - March 2025 (PDF, 129 KB) here and below you will see the number of hours I've spent in meetings as well as the number of emails sent and received.

I hope you have enjoyed my latest update.

Thank you for reading and take care.

Photo captions: 

Cllr Anne Dorrian with Elizabeth Froude, Platform Housing Group Chief Executive

Cllr Anne Dorrian with Cllr Ashley Baxter, Leader of South Kesteven District Council and Cllr Marianne Overton, Leader of the Local Government Association Independent Group. 

Cllr Anne Dorrian with Baroness Taylor of Stvenage

Cllr Anne Dorian with Imam, Abdul Hamid Qureshi and Aisha Bako