Visit to Boston
Belper Civic Forum visited Boston in Lincolnshire on Saturday 19 June. Following last year's highly successful day visit to Stamford and Sleaford, members compared the challenges faced by another historic market towns dealing with traffic and development pressures.
Led by John Bird and Paul Gibson of the Boston Preservation Trust, the Belper group saw how Boston has a rich and sometimes unappreciated range of quality buildings, and how the Preservation Trust has successfully campaigned to protect places of character in the town. Particularly impressive is the Trust's early 18th century Fydell House, and the recognition scheme that it runs for important sites (blue plaques) and sympathetic restoration and repair schemes.
On the down side, Boston is facing a major struggle to deal with levels of traffic far greater than those in Belper, but it's large rural hinterland means that it beenfits from a large, thriving market and many national chains of shops, even though its core population is, if anything, smaller than Belper's.
The Civic Forum's next activity is at the Belper Well dressings in the River Gardens on Sunday 11 July, and a site visit to Mill Lane on Tuesday 13 July.