GWSR Broadway Developments

Yes indeed, Britannia waives (or changes) the rules.

 

For those who have not seen the letter, it states that the offer is not eligible for EIS and thus it is not possible to reclaim tax on purchases.

 

Any reason given?

 

The letter from Chris Bristow, GWSR PLC Finance Director says:

"the only disappointment being the HMRC Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) where it now looks unlikely the share issue will qualify. This seems manifestly unfair as we received advanced assurance (HMRC language for approval) in December 2014 and a further confirmation in January 2016. However, they now state the law has changed and we must abide by the new (EU Inspired) rules, which require a successful proposal to link different countries or people who speak different languages. They believe linking Gloucestershire with Worcestershire does not meet these new border or linguistic criteria!. Although we have not given up on persuading them otherwise, investors should plan no EIS tax relief being available"

 

Thank you. That is not going to be helpful in reaching the target. Sounds as though EIS may be dead for heritage railways.

 

There's a lot going on with the extension. Rail is being delivered, ballast dumped, track laid.

You can read updates of it on the blog here:
http://broadwayextensionblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/the-sleeper-train-arrives.html

and today an empty ballast train ran back down the former Laverton headshunt, to be loaded with fresh ballast half a mile away:


Ballast tipping to prepare the trackbed will come to Broadway soon, probably this year end. The Extension blog, and the Broadway blog, will end up side by side

Attached is a picture of the first train over Little Buckland bridge. It was a class 73 with 300 sleepers, and the 6 Dogfish in the video above.

Cost of a Dogfish full of new ballast: £500 (approx)
Cost of a new rail: £750 (approx)

Current share issue balance: £812.000, £438.000 still to raise.

 

Chris also went on to say (and I paraphrase) that, if you are a UK taxpayer then, a donation, of no financial benefit to you, will bring an additional 25% to the Railway. Thus, a donation of say, £100 will provide the Railway with £125. Every little helps!

 

The website (accessed just now) says on http://www.gwsr.com/about-us/ownership/shares-in-gwr.aspx "STOP PRESS: The GWSR has launched its 'Broadway - The Last Mile' share purchase offer which, under the Government's Enterprise Investment Scheme, allows subscribers eligible for 30% tax relief on any purchase." This seems fairly unequivocal, if ungrammatical, but I assume the page has not been updated rather than the news has changed?

 

No doubt the Railway's "Legal Beagles" are on to this, given that it is misleading information, although issued in good faith. Nevertheless, I think it may be a good idea to insert a copy of Chris's recent letter to all members/shareholders, with the appropriate phrases highlighted, so that not no future subscriber is mislead.

 

GWSR website now showing £840,000 raised so far.

 

And in other news, Platform 2 at CRC has finally been tarmacced today!

https://crcsmagazine.com/about/

A major step forward!

 

Yes, good news indeed. Although the tarmac looks very "harsh" now, it will soon weather and blend in more with its surroundings. I guess the GWR used chippings in the early days which are fine if kept very clean and you have a team of people raking the surface all the time.
Thanks for the link. I've not seen this site before. It's a small world; I know Tim W from my previous career; I always called him "Sir" though!

 

In which case you might like to bookmark this one.

http://www.gwsr.com/news/from-the-blogs.aspx

It updates all the current blogs on a daily basis, and with everything going on there is always something new!

 

Also a couple of photo sites:

GWR Permanent Way - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gwr_permanent_way_photo_log/

& Andy Protherough's lineside drainage photo site - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gwr-lineside-drainage-management/

 

Very sad news today posted on the blog regarding the death of one of the Broadway volunteers.

Condolences to all concerned.

46118

 

The GWSR Website is today showing the Broadway extension appeal as having reached £880K.

 

So before the Broadway Station blog took a break, there were two updates per week; one for Saturday work days, and one for Wednesdays. We now seem to be getting only one update per week? Is this a new permanent situation?

Noel

 

I think Peter Hickox who sadly died the other week was one of the bloggers. I don't know whether this has anything to do with this.

 

It's a few years since I was there but, even then, Saturdays used to be what I referred to as 'Gardening Day'. i.e. Low attendance and not much going on [of note]. I/we called in there a few Saturdays ago with some donated building materials and there was nobody present who could make a decision as to whether they would be useful or not.

I have the impression that, weather permitting, the 'Brickies' attend on other weekdays but the focus of the Blog contributions is centred around the Wednesday activities.

 

As Ken says, there is quite a limited attendance on Saturdays, also there were three bloggers (Peter was one of them) and I don't think any of them work Saturdays, so it is unlikely that there will be a Saturday report done separately. If there is anything specific to report from the Saturday, then we will include it in the Wednesday blog, so you will see that a combination of things has resulted in usually just one blog report a week now.

For a few weeks some of the bricklayers have worked on Mondays, however, yesterday a large number of us attended Peters funeral service, so no work was done this Monday.

You can be assured that we are working very hard to ensure that we are ready for the opening date in 2018 and will report as much as we can as work progresses.