Over the summer of 2018 many innocent attendees of events, financed by Boston Big Local, were accosted by members of the Resident’s Panel, armed with clip-boards and copies of our annual questionnaire. One of the questions (accompanied by a fuzzy map of central Boston, with enlarged labels naming prominent roads and various drains that form the boundaries of the Big Local area) asked simply (or so we thought) whether the person answering the questionnaire lived inside, or outside, the area.

When we compiled the results (comparing street names or postcodes with the Yes/No answers for the ‘where do you live’ question) we became aware of a curious phenomenon. It would appear that nearly four-in-ten of those answering the question do NOT know where they live in relation to the Big Local area!

Of the 265 responders; 38 correctly knew that they lived inside the area, whilst 128 were equally right about living beyond its boundaries. This meant that 81 people were mistaken as to whether they lived inside or outside the area (11 of those who live in the area thought that they lived outside its limits, whilst a massive 70 of those living outside the boundaries actually thought they lived inside the area).

The mathematicians among you will have realized by now that, of the 265 people who completed our questionnaire, only 247 are accounted for by the ‘correct’ and ‘mistaken’ answers mentioned above. This is explained by the fact that 5 residents of the area and 13 non-residents chose not to answer the question, meaning that 18 people could not decide whether they live inside or outside the Boston town centre.

As a consequence of sowing so much confusion, amongst those residents of the Borough (and beyond) who innocently attend our events in the hope of gaining a few hours of stress-free enjoyment, the Boston Big Local panel have decided in future to simply ask for an attendee’s postcode. In this way the stress of deciding who does (and who does not) live within the Big Local area can be heaped upon the shoulders of our panel members, who ask the question in the first place.

So do you live in the area here ate two simple ways to check:

  1. If your post code is PE21 8** or PE21 6** you more than likely live in the area. To be 100% sure check our postcode list
  2. Download or look at the map below:
    BBL Area