Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

What you have said does ring my bell as well, you are correct that we do need just one Trust under and open of a proactive management team.

I feel we need to be be thinking in terms of having an almost new structure inplace, which conventiantrly splits in to three sections:-

1) To own the land, trackbed and other asset's etc, but also being the overall owner of the project which is subject to being the main membership body as well.

2) The second group to run the railway

3) The construction team


Group one is basically the funding body for the whole project

Groups Two is the commercial operation of the railway itself

Group Three deals with everythink from Planning to construction of the railway itself. This will be funded by Group 1 which will make Group 3 a construction subsidary of the Trust.

Currently I don't see any genuine attempt to bring all the L&BR family together right now, but we all need to believe in the fact that it will be possible for all of this to happen overthe next five to ten years.

 

Not helped by the fact that some players want a round ball, some want an oval ball, most of their balls have been punctured anyway, and the Captain has taken 'his' ball home...

 

With thanks to @Michael B, I was confused about when the Trust acquired £200,000 in LBBC shares, and how it related to the £450,000 that the Trust received in two legacies between last summer and January 2023. You will recall that these two legacies were the majority of the funds that underpinned the claim that "the funding for the Return to Parracombe appeal has reached £700k", despite the fact that this £450,000 was never actually put into the restricted "Return to Parracombe Fund" (RtPF).

I found out today that my inference about the £450,000 from the legacies is wrong, so I wanted to correct the record here. However, before we all start jumping for joy, all of the £450,00 has been spent, and is therefore not available to the RtPF. This means that the Trust's ongoing claim that the RtPF has £700,000 available to it remains untrue.

It would appear that the £450,000 was spent thus:

- £250,000 unsecured loan to LBBC at 5%.

We have covered this before, and the problems we've identified - that it isn't secured, isn't at a commercial rate, and together with the £253,000 in shares owned by the Trust mean an exposure of more than £500,000 to a pub - are all still accurate and concerning, given the debt load that OSHI/LBBC is carrying. Of course, it also means that £500,000 of precious capital is locked up in OSHI/LBBC and isn't available for any other purpose.

- £197,000 for what Newsletter 81 describes without putting an amount on it as "the new access road at Rowley Moor farm" (Newsletter 81, p8).

I was amazed at this cost, and asked why we were spending nearly £200,000 on a road designed to service the locomotive sheds at Rowley Moor Farm for which planning permission lapsed in March? I'm told that this was required to unlock the planning permission for the conversion of a barn at Rowley Moor into staff accomodation, which is apparenlty going to cost in the order of another £100,000. Now, ignoring the question of whether the Trust or its associated CIC should be in the business of providing staff housing in the first place, this means that the Trust is now paying out £300,000 now for staff accomodation when it is under real financial pressure to the extent that resorts to lying about the amount of money in the RtPF. Indeed, even if it were contractually required to do so, this seems like an extremely expensive way of providing accomodation at a time when the Trust is under real financial pressure - lets in the North Devon seem to range from £950 to £1350 pcm at the moment.

Why would we choose to do this now with funds which have been publicly committed to the RtPF, especially when it means that we don't have the funds available to reconstruct Bridge 65 on which the clock is ticking, loudly, for completion before the agreement with Devon Highways to assume responsibility for it, lapses? Who agreed this prioritisation and when?

Anyway, I wanted to correct the record as new information emerges, and will continue to do so. Sadly, each time more information does emerge, it seems that the number of questions gets bigger and messier, not the reverse.

 

I wonder if this was intended as a short-term loan to enable the purchase to proceed. With the asset secured and the pub trading, presumably profitably at least before interest, it must be possible to raise a mortgage on the property, which AIUI has no charges currently registered against it. Additionally, it should be possible to justify some sort of overdraft or line of credit, possibly only on a seasonal basis. If this is the case then the £250,000, or the greater part of it, could be repaid to the Trust with more coming from the current sale of shares.
What a pity that the Trust Chairman does not deign to explain his Board's actions !

 

Indeed, it would be great if Mr Miles would explain things.

But the repayments apppear to be over 10 years, and in any event, it would be more senssible to repay the more expensive loan first, no?

 

It's more than 'a pity' it is da**ed outrageous!! Is there no limit to the unexplained high-handed excesses of this man: truly acting as a nineteenth-century leader of ... well, not much, really! It is this unapproachable and poor decision making that is bringing the L&BR Trust into disrepute. How many legacies may now find home elsewhere? If you were a potential benefactor here you would now surely look elsewhere. It all beggars belief!

 

It would appear that at least some potential legacies have been lost to the Trust. Let's hope that they end up with EA/YVT in order not to be lost to the L&B Family.

 

https://find-and-update.company-inf.../09678253/charges/3MSKzXkgSctEQ6ylpCng7UMlR7A

Many of us find that the approach is EA/YVT is far more open!

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I really don't understand people saying this.

Even if our energy was 100% generated by coal in the UK, power stations are far more consistent in their performance, maintenance and emissions. Those emissions are not uncontrolled by any margin. Diesel vehicles only have a prayer of meeting their manufacturer's standards when they're young and perfectly maintained. Sit in traffic behind a Peugeot Eurocab if you don't get what I mean.

The investment in the method of power generation (and hence its emissions) is governed by large businesses with money to spend and legislation from central government rather than individuals with wildly differing motivations and budgets. If you've sorted your street level emissions the air in your cities is already far cleaner and free from local pollutants - these are a completely different issue to greenhouse emissions. Why would you not want that to be the case if it is practical?

That is enough to completely rubbish the "power stations make emissions" thing on its own, even if generation was 100% coal. FYI, coal made up only 31.3% of power generation in the UK in 1990. In 2021 it was 3.4% and falling. ICE vehicles are always ICE, unlike the changing mix of commercial power generation.

 

The quote was a reply to discussion of the electric milk float era - I don't think the power stations had controlled emissions at that time.

 

Thank you for the correction. I was looking at the wrong company !

 

I believe it’s also the case the previous owners negotiated the right to remain in the adjoining house for up to 2 years. Once this’s elapsed letting or selling this property might also be part of the plan to reduce the debt burden, but who knows.

 

I heard that too, and suspect it has something to do with the apparent NDA. The LBBC purchase vehicle was incorporated way back in 2015 and from that you can guess how long it took to reach agreement, and what the counterparty was like as a negotiator. If there is indeed a NDA then it's no use speculating, guessing and extrapolating. Some sellers are just very difficult - I've been there myself.

 

There may or may not be an NDA, @Breva but (i) that should have been made clear; (ii) given an exposure of more than £500,000, the Trust should be proactively telling us what they can, which they have not and I'm sure you agree that (iii) the Trust should not be publishing things on their website which simply aren't true.

 

Sadly it is somewhat like catch 22 - I don't think they are allowed to even say that there is a NDA.

 

The Trust must have accepted some pretty unusual terms then! Having bought & sold businesses, I've not experienced such. A pub hardly has valuable IP for example .

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The purchase price should be in the land registry at some point, @Breva . The LBBC accounts - which given the Trust's 22.8% stake, the Trust Members should have a copy of, whether they are personally shareholders or not - will provide much additional data at some point next year. And as @Isambard! notes, where's the IP for a pub? It looks a lot like secrecy for secrecy's sake to avoid questions and in so doing evade accountability, which isn't a great look.

 

I thought it stated in the prospectus that the house would be used as office space, museum and volunteers accommodation but then so much has changed since the prospectus was put out

 

I imagine that wouldn’t be essential before reinstatement of the railway (and perhaps not the highest priority for quite a while after), so a good few years of rental income might well be possible. What that’s worth, as a proportion of the debt, I don’t know.

 

Just to throw a huge spanner in the works don't forget that Blackmoor is made up of 4 properties:

1 the pub
2 the ex owners house
3 and 4 two houses, which I don't think are part of the deal but will need to be purchased at the time of them being sold by their current owners.