Land of my Pilgrim Fathers - Boston Lincolnshire

"We're the forgotten town" says my brother. It's a common refrain as I speak to members of my family. Once the second biggest port in England and a hotbed of radical religious fervour that influenced the world - it is now a traffic clogged backwater. As someone who left the town 22 years ago it seems fitting that nowadays the towns greatest historical legacy is to be known as a place that people escaped. When the Pilgrim Fathers (who were imprisoned there) arrived in America they chose to name their home Boston.

Yet, 'forgotten town' seems an odd label. Over the last few years, for a small market town of only 60,000, Boston has attracted a remarkable amount media attention - none of it good. Firstly, Boston United, the local football team, attracted attention for making illegal payments to players and avoiding tax. United were subsequently relegated three leagues in two years. The chant from the terraces of 'who ate all the pies' was easy to answer because in 2006, Boston was named the fattest town in Britain with 31% of its residents clinically obese.

The growth in its population was not just around the waist. In 2001 96% of the population were regarded themselves as 'white' British. After the expansion of the European Union in 2004, Boston saw its population grow by 25% in just a couple of years. Although wages are very low in the area, migrants from Eastern European countries with even lower wages were were attracted by the prospect of working on the farms and in the food packing and processing factories. According to Refugee Support, 95% of local employers use casual labour and 98% is immigrant labour.  In 2008, Hazel Blears, then Communities Secretary,  confirmed to a Commons Select Committee that one in four people were from Portugal or Eastern Europe and an incredible 65 languages were spoken. 

Much attention, and rightly, has been given to the plight of the new 'Bostonians'. In 2007, The Independent ran a story, 'Immigration: In the town where the gangmaster is king.' Gangmasters are contracted to provide labour for the agricultural and horticultural industry. The Reverend David de Verny, former Chapain to migrant workers, was very critical of the system, "Two hundred years after the official abolition of slavery we are treating foreign workers like slaves. We are only interested in them as economic commodities."

Verny's concerns seem to be borne out by the practices of the gangmasters. The Independent reported they had a 'very holistic approach to "caring" for their workers – getting the wages back by selling them housing, food from their own shop, vodka or hard drugs, or prostitutes. Marta, a 28 year old from Warsaw said, "The gangmaster system rules the town. It is a total disaster. People work for 12 hours, seven days a week, for very little money. All the Poles live together in overcrowded houses paying ridiculous rents to the gangmaster. They travel together and they have no money or time to learn English. What chance do they have?"

Little has been said, however, about the problems that this huge influx of immigrants has brought to the town. Maggie Peberdy of the Citizens' Advice Bureau, noted that, "If you're 50 years old and have been working for the same company for a long time, you're in big trouble. You may be getting slow and a bit arthritic, but the boss can get in a Pole who is younger and faster. He will work seven days a week, at all hours, and he'll be paid piecemeal with no sick pay, no holiday pay, nothing. Unless you accept those terms too you may be out of a job." The immigrants have enabled the producers to keep wages low. 

The strain is being felt in a number of ways. Last year a Boston Headteacher warned that, soon, 60% of pupils will be from immigrant families. A police report in 2006 highlighted that Eastern European 'mafia-style gangsters were organising prostitution. In a stop and check operation, Lincolnshire police found 50 per cent of all drivers were committing an offence and 97 per cent of those were migrant workers. The police noted 'a marked increase in road traffic accidents in this rural area.' Boston had also seen a rapid increase in house prices because gangmasters were buying homes to house their low-paid workers. The council estimated the average two-bedroom house price has risen 400 per cent in six years with the  ‘ghettoisation’ of some areas. 

Advice worker, Maggie Peberdy explains, "There are things you can't talk about because you get accused of racism. "One is housing. There is a myth that they are all young, fit and single, but if you put people like that together in vast numbers they soon stop being single. They make couples, and then babies. They may have to be considered a priority for housing help. Their needs will be perceived as greater than those of local people, who may get upset." As The Independent pointed out, these are the words of someone who has demonstrated a commitment to helping the immigrant population. The Telegraph reported last year that the recession has not seen the migrants returning home. Boston is now officially the fertility capital of Britain with an average of 2.8 babies per woman, thanks largely to the new immigrant families. 

All public services have been put under pressure by the population growth and by the challenges of dealing with people who don't speak English and have different cultural expectations. Remember, this is a rural and very isolated part of the country. When I was at secondary school I was regarded as an ethnic minority for having an Irish grandfather and being a catholic. Don't underestimate what a culture shock this has been for everyone concerned. Current estimates suggest that there are at least 66,000 people living in the borough. Yet government funding is based on the data from the last census which showed 54,000, no wonder services are struggling to cope. In the circumstances, it seems quite an achievement that there has not been more tension in the town. 

Visiting Boston from Bath is a pretty big culture shock, even for someone who was raised in the town. It feels like venturing into a rather dystopian vision of globalised Britain. It is a town that feels deprived. Lacking money, yes, but to a large extent direction and hope. The election, in 2008, of a BNP candidate to the Fenside Ward, on Boston Council again drew the media, but, the BNP's victory, while no doubt reflecting a degree of racial tension, with a poll of just 279 votes on a turnout of 22% it was hardly a racist mandate. What the media missed and is more interesting, I think, is that 25 of the 32 council seats are controlled by independents. There is a general feeling that the mainstream parties just aren't interested in Boston people or their problems.  

What are the problems? For me, it's not about race, it is about poverty. Towns like Boston reflect the two-tier society (at the very least) that we are creating. Boston and towns like it are an indictment of how working class people have been badly let down by the Conservatives and New Labour over the last thirty years. Whole towns are simply being left behind. Can we afford to allow whole boroughs to disengage from mainstream politics? Their 'ultimate solutions' might be even less palatable than the BNP.

Now, can I eat all the pies, please?