Objections fail to sway Boston 200-home plan

A Stamford business woman who appeared on BBC’s The Apprentice has launched a ‘Stamxit’ campaign for the Lincolnshire town to join the neighbouring county of Rutland to be “tier 2 together”.

American-born risk management consultant Marianne Rawlins, who lives in Stamford, was fired after the music-themed ninth task in series 15 of the BBC One show last year.

It was confirmed on Thursday that the whole of Greater Lincolnshire will move into tier 3 when the national lockdown ends on December 2, and Marianne took to Twitter to air her views with a controversial idea.

She said: “I am breaking my Twitter silence to launch a campaign promoting #Stamxit, which would see #Stamford join the county of #Rutland where we can all be tier 2 together.”

In response, @MarkSJordan said: “Absolutely. No synergies with Lincolnshire whatsoever and is just a huge cash cow for SKDC (South Kesteven District Council).”

Twitter user @MedCasey said: “Missed your tweets. Not sure about that though.”

Marianne moved from the US to the UK in 2017 and before entering The Apprentice she said she believes conflict management is one of her strongest skills.

She battled against 15 other candidates before Alan Sugar dismissed her from the process to leave just six people competing, with artisan bakery owner Carina Lepore finishing as the overall winner.

Health bosses are in discussions with the government about a new COVID-19 testing centre in Skegness, where infection rates are very high, but the exact location has not been confirmed.

Lincolnshire County Council’s director of public health Professor Derek Ward, however, said it was hoped to be around the size of the Lincolnshire Showground testing site.

East Lindsey has the fourth highest infection rate in the country. The government’s most recent seven-day data for the area showed a rate of 443.8 per 100,000 of the population, down from 470.6 the previous day.

Southern neighbour’s Boston have seen their figures drop from 439.9 to 430.4 (number 8 nationally), while along the coast to the north saw North East Lincolnshire decrease from 421.2 to 394.8.

This compares with an England average of 209.1, down from 218.4.

Skegness already has a mobile testing site, but with the new tier 3 designation for the whole of Lincolnshire, areas with high cases will get a six-week testing capacity boost.

Professor Ward said: “ We were in conversations about increasing our testing capacity anyway, we’ve been good at getting in our requests early and we’ve had pretty good coverage in our mobile testing units.

“We moved one of those into Skegness considering what we were seeing in the district, and on the back of that we had conversations with the government about […] can we actually get a bigger testing facility more permanently whilst we’re still in the pandemic in Skegness?”

He added: “That is progressing well, so I can’t say it’s definitely going to happen, but it’s only progressing well.”

Grantham and Gainsborough recently started work on new testing sites due to open this month and another has been announced in Boston.

They will join two others at the Lincolnshire Showground and the University of Lincoln, meaning the county will have eight permanent sites.

Around 25,000 tests have been carried out every week across the county. The last seven days showed an 8.4% positivity rate — around 2,100 cases.

It’s down from a 12% positivity rate at the peak of the latest wave between November 17-19.

A police officer has been sacked for using the barcode for 7p carrots to buy 12 Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

PC Simon Read bought the doughnuts while on duty for Cambridgeshire Police in a Tesco Extra store in Wisbech, near the Lincolnshire border, on February 10.

He had been accused of scanning a 7p carrot barcode to pay for 12 Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which cost £9.95.

He was called for a disciplinary hearing for this and has been sacked for gross misconduct as a result.

The disciplinary panel found that PC Read had in fact scanned the wrong barcode on purpose, despite his claims that it was “an honest mistake”.

This is a claim that was described as “lacking in credibility” by those conducting the hearing.

CCTV footage caught PC Read red handed, as it showed him look at the screen to select his payment method and put the carrots on the doughnuts box, the same side as its barcode.

PC Read’s lawyer, Carolina Bracken, told the panel that the officer has had prank calls since the incident from people offering him doughnuts.

He was found to have breached the standards of professional behaviour within the force at the two day hearing in Peterborough, which concluded on Thursday.

It means that Read has been relieved of his duties after joining the Cambridgeshire force in January.

Deputy Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police, Jane Gyford, said: “The public should be able to trust that police officers in their duty will act with honesty and integrity at all times.

“We expect the highest standards from our officers, but PC Read’s conduct has been found to have fallen short of our expectations.

“I hope this outcome offers reassurance to our communities that our officers and staff will be held to account for their actions.”

PC Read has a right to appeal the panel’s decision, but it is unclear if he will go ahead with it.