Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I agree totally - the trustees [both new and old] should be given a chance to settle in and start to address the issues and make plans for the future. It doesn't help saying the consultation about where to go next was a 'mock consultation'. It came down heavily for the extension to Cricket Field Lane - you might not agree with this but it is evident from the recent newsletter that a lot of work has been put into planning for this.

I feel very positive about the way things are going - I am happy with the outcome of the election. Those who are negative presumably wanted a different outcome. We should be accepting the democratic choice of the membership.

 

Firstly the consultation was limited to a "pick 1 of 4" options, it was clearly not an attempt to garner all the possible ideas from the membership and then look for the more realistic choices.

Secondly, Option 'C' in the opinion of many was simply the 'best of a bad bunch'.

Thirdly, the fact that a lot of work has been put into planning for CFL does not per se make it a good idea. Maybe it is, but I'm yet to be convinced - especially in the absence of a 5-year plan and how it might fit into that. After all, Phase 2A had a great deal of work in its planning and look what happened there.

 

I feel we need to make sure holding the feet to the fire doesn’t lose momentum.

 

We could blame the Chairman and his mates on the board for harassing and hounding the only female off the board…

That’s a lot of assumptions you’ve made to rule someone out. How do you know how much spare time someone has? How do you know that she planned to stay on the other boards if she was elected? Why is previous railway management experience a requirement when I’m pretty sure that most if not all of the sitting trustees were originally elected with no railway experience .

Unless any of the trustees dare to disagree with the Chairman…

An extension to nowhere, access problems at CFL, potentially costing a lot of money that the trust doesn’t have and creating financial issues for the future if the line was ever to be extended in that direction. Great. I’m sure there’ll be queues of people wanting to ride those extra 100m and donate thousands to build it, only to find it’s been peed up the wall on unnecessary EGMs or in consultants advice on how to persecute members.

You must be very naive if you can’t see why people are still annoyed.
The new board is going to have to perform some kind of miracle including being open and honest with the members, publishing a lot more information (past and current, financial, planning, legal etc), if they want to regain the trust of the members.

 

And , as explained at the AGM Saturday night by John ...it was , at the time of starting it all , was the best idea and the most likely to succeed.

Lessons have been learnt and considering so much of the paperwork has already been done and just needs a "little bit of updating " would make the most logical sense to do.

It was difficult to listen to some of the questions last night being shouted at to the trustees , it clearly showed a complete lack of understanding and unwillingness to listen to facts.

 

Does that not tell you that either the trustees are not communicating properly with the members, or, that what they are communicating has been found to be untrue?

 

Congratulations to the four elected trustees and in particular the three new members of the board. You join at an interesting time. My heartfelt thanks go also to those willing to put themselves forward to take on the role, even though they were not elected this time. We must give all nine members a brief breathing space to form themselves into a new board, and to work towards the success that we all want for the L&BR. Just remember, three of those nine individuals will be standing down in less than a year from now...

 

If

If I told you " we don't own the land directly after paracombe halt"

would you , 20 seconds later as the next question be
"why can't we just not terminate in paracombe and go stright through paracombe halt?"

 

And sometimes whether due to privilege or commercial reasons things have to be kept confidential and "at board level". I perfectly understand a membership requesting information but sometimes as a company the board may just not be able or it not being deemed wise to allow that information to be made public. As I have said before, we often see a clash between the world of business and the world of a charity membership, it's not an easy situation to resolve or deal with on both sides of the fence.

 

Where exactly is a positive outcome, the meeting was an embarrassment for the trust, today not only have many members expressed their disappointment in the way the meeting was handled, but also the way in which certain trustee's acted and also the actions of the secretary, quite a few said they would not attend an AGM again and also that their funds would not be going to Woody Bay, John Barton couldn't even give a rough idea of how much in the way of total funds were available for an extension to CFL apart from what sits in a restricted fund, one thing they all need is a good kick up the backside on how to address the members in a correct and polite way

 

I’m aware of the land issues. That doesn’t mean a tiny, expensive extension is the sensible option. Parracombe is obviously a non starter for the medium term, so why antagonise the locals by trying to push things? Why not look at other options?

 

Agreed. But there seems to be a massive amount of non-confidential information which is being withheld or deliberately obscured.

 

Sorry but it tells me that some members have made their minds up and will not listen to the trustees - I realise that some may be frustrated but that is no reason to shout at the trustees.

 

Likewise, surely, there is never any reason for a trustee or other official to shout at (much less strike - as has occurred previously) a trust member?

 

I took the comment as a quote from a question asked by a member at the AGM where they didn't listen to the answer.

 

Or maybe the trustees aren’t listening to those on the floor?

 

There are two ways at looking at this one, the softly softly approach where both the Management and the Membership engauge with each other to work out their differences (with the membership holding the big stick if you like) or which I think is more than likley to happen a continuation of the past few months for at least a year or two.

Neither in my view, do either version build much trust, but both sides need to give a bid to receive a lot. The common ground has to be that no one and I mean no one should consider themselves to be above anyone eles and no they shouldn't think that they own the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway either.

It is not difficult to just come out and say we the L&BR group are in the business of rebuilding the old L&BR from Snapper Halt outside of Barnstaple alway back to the outskirts of Lynton.

I know some will have a problem with that, but if you are open and honest about what you want to do, you can then approach land owners without any issues and you might be able to help them just as much as they can and are willing to help you.

I don't think that approach is high risk any more, after all we have been about for over fourty years and I would think it would be hard for most of those that will be effected have not heard about this railway in that time.

What we need is a self belief in that we can do this, but more so we need the leaders of this group to show us how they plan to make this happen?

 

I can accept the outcome of the vote even if id wished one other nominee to have been elected especially having spent at least 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon in that persons presence along with a few others listening to a lot of common sense discussion about how the railway could move forwards, what i cannot accept, which yourself and other non attendee's cannot envisage through posts on here is the attitude, arrogance and condescendence of a few existing trustee's plus the secretary towards the members present and with that in mind i would wish two of the newly elected trustee's all the best will in the world that they can make headway because they certainly have a mountain to climb to make a difference

 

I'd be delighted to see some progress. What I don't understand with the CFL proposals include, but are not limited to:

(i) How much will the CFL extension cost? Is this the best use of limited resources vs say reinstatement south of OSHI (which would have the benefit of providing an attraction at OSHI, like, er, the one in the prospectus that Cowling didn't correct contrary to FCA listing rules when the Planning Permission was lost....)
(ii) What is the access along Cricket Field Lane itself? Who owns it? If there's no access, what does this mean about VAT on fares?
(iii) Is the proposed platform being built to the same standards (notably width) as our overall spec? I'm told it is considerably narrower.
(iv) For CFL station to be at 1:500 when the line is dropping at 1:50 towards Parracombe, there will need to be a lot of work that needs to be ripped out when we extend further south. As I understand the situation (and grateful for correction) the planning permission for Killington Lane lapses when the railways opens south of there, so KL will be removed. So when we want to extend south of CFL, where do trains run to or do we simply suspend the service?
(v) CFL will result in increased running costs; what makes us think that it will recoup these in increased fares, especially as the frequency of the train service will presumably fall given the longer journey? Or is a passing loop and a two trains service envisaged? Where would the loop go, etc?
(vi) And most importantly.... WHY do we think ENPA / Parracombe will be supportive of what is clearly an attempt at 'salami slicing'?

None of these questions are new or difficult. But no news, as ever, on these points in the "Newsletter".

As @RailWest has already pointed out, last year's consultation was nothing of the sort. The behaviour of the Trust Board has verred further towards secrecy and lack of transparency, when exactly the opposite is required. I wish the new Trustees luck, and better treatment that the last new Trustees got from their existing colleagues.

 

Quite right and it is up to the board to decide if and when to make that information available to the Public or members.