North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Exactly what I was going to say. I AM a qualified solicitor but my advice is only as good as the question that I am asked, though sector knowledge (as I have on a completely different area) can be helpful in interpreting what the advice-seeker actually means. There are a number of specialist charity lawyers out there (I actually trained as one, but that was over 15 years ago and I wouldn't count on it for something as significant as this, hence why I'm asking questions and not providing answers) who I would expect to be able to provide advice on how to deal with overlapping requirements in terms of regulatory, tax and consumer overlap. But they need to know what problem the organisation is trying to solve.

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Yesterday 44806 and the 31 top and tailed the set from Grosmont to Goathland and back.

 

As mentioned by 35B, I suspect the advice with regard to Gift Aid treatment was correct - but that the question with regard to refunds by treating the donation as a payment for service was not included in the question. If it was, then that provides much further food for thought for a huge range of charitable bodies (and certainly not just heritage railways) who have received legal advice that GA donations must be treated as non-refundable!

The opinions expressed on this forum include one reporting the (admitedly informal) response of a Tax Inspector, and two separate interactions from my own experience (one of which was an HMRC inspection where they checked that no refunds of eligible donations had been made where Gift Aid had been claimed, and a separate presentation on the treatment of Gift Aid within the context of a heritage tourism industry body).

The fact remains that, beyond this forum, the consensus seems to be that payment of a donation on which GA is claimed is non-returnable in nature - and there is some surprise from a number of people here (some of whom do have relevant professional knowledge) that NYMR has taken the position it has as the outlier by making GA payments refundable.

I think the further concern, on the part of some comments that I have read, is that the model of governance (and resulting commercial assumptions) adopted by NYMR is influential on other railways through the offices of HRA (and arguably ORR through their recommendations to follow industry best practice, which HRA is influential in shaping).

 

Have been following this with interest both as a lawyer and as part of the management of another heritage railway.

I’m assuming that not all of the visits to the NYMR will take up the GA option so CRA would still have application to them.

that aside, I thought the premise of GA was that it entitles the holder to free entry for a year. If there was a problem “on the day” eg train failed or late then surely the fact that the holder can return on any operating day (bar 5) in the next year confers enough benefit to negate the suggestion of a refund?

Also if a railway sets themselves up as a living museum can there be any expectation of running “to time?”. Most museums offer that a tour may take “around an hour” but may not give a definitive time as to when it may finish. I guess this is the tension between claiming the dual benefit of being a museum (for GA) and as a transport system (for VAT).

I can only really conclude as I have done previously that heritage railways are a legal minefield and we can interpret the law as we like but it may take a particular instance with high publicity to change the thinking given that there is so much grey here.

 

Just on the point of GA, the switch between approaches to claiming GA on visitors' payments is between the two approaches to claiming Gift Aid permitted by HMRC - the "new" approach for NYMR being that adopted by the National Trust at its properties.

The conflict between consumer and tax legislation then appears to arise from the decision of NYMR to respond to consumer law by providing for refunds to be paid under certain circumstances, a position that is seemingly unique within the sector.

It would be interesting to see a legal anylusis of the T&Cs at other places to assess whether non-Gift Aided admission is treated as a contract or as a donation (remember, not all donations are eligible for Gift Aid) and whether NYMR is unique in its treatment, or whether this discussion merely exposes NYMR in particular.

This point is key, because if my supposition is right and NYMR have misconstrued* the interaction of various pieces of legislation, there is a significant risk of contagion that could cause issues well beyond just NYMR.

* - for the avoidance of doubt, I absolutely accept that @Lineisclear has acted in good faith, in accordance with professional advice, and in a conscientious effort to both comply and be visibly compliant with legislation.

 

Passengers for the 1440 were offered the 1558 Northern Rail service as far as Grosmont then with connecting autocar to Goathland.

 

Awaiting repairs after being bashed into or by a steam loco

 

Please check the truth before appearing to post with knowledge of the facts

 

Without getting into attribution of cause, some kind of view of why the trailer was out of service would be useful - if only to remove some of the space for speculation. If, following the precise meaning of yours and @Simon Smith's posts, there was a shunting incident which has given rise to work being required, acknowledging as much (but no more) would be reasonable. Alternatively, if the query about an FTR failure was on the nose, then so might that.

 

Possibly, but it's for the NYMR to commnicate news via normal channels. Speculation is one thing but a post that wrongly implies knowledge of the facts is another.

 

As a tangent to the Gift Aid tax discussion, one of the points made is what is being made is that the fee paid by visitors may be regarded as a fee to view the charitable works of the Trust - but then again can that be viewed as

..... and we all know how good the management's ability to communicate is! In other words, something else they can't do in any way resembling adequately.

 

That's fine - but as illustrated here, if an organisation doesn't get those comms out quickly, it will lose control.

 

But without specifying the facts, then as far as the forum readers are concerned, your statement is speculation as well. You can't have it both ways - you need to either state what the issue is, or say nothing; telling us that a statement is incorrect without backing that up with evidence is nonsense.

 

Just an observation, but is it just my perception that the NYMR are more prone to bashing into things than heritage lines in general?

 

There have been several bashes on several lines. The Aviemore was the worst in recent times.

 

K1 Pickering, S15 Grosmont, 20 Grosmont, coaches Pickering off the top of my head.

 

Aviemore was high profile due to the loco, the stock, and being in full view of the public. The collision in the barn at Pickering arguably had more of an impact (pun not intended!) as it wiped out half of the NYMR's available rolling stock in one go, leading to carriages being hired in to provide a semblance of service for the steam gala.

 

As this site is about railways and not admission charges, I thought it might be an idea to move the conversation along a bit, albeit with a nod back to some of the recent messages. If what one pays is not a train fare, but an admission donation to view the charitable work of the Trust, what is actually on offer in exchange? I cannot think of a great deal in reality. For a start, one doesn't have to go far to find other railways large and small, for signalling and steam, diesel engines and carriages are to be found in abundance at the NRM, whilst the ones in day to day use at the NYMR are pretty commonplace designs that can be found all over the country; the NYMR doesn't have a museum as such and precious little in the way of artefacts on display. The view, from the window is not really the NYMR's either it just happens to be there as the train goes along and their influence on it is restricted to a few either side of the rails. So, is it being sold under false pretences?

IMHO, the original aims and purposes of the early founders and members have become corrupted and forgotten with time. It has been said that the original founding just wanted to preserve the railway to serve local communities, but had that been the case it is unlikely that it would have developed into the major tourist attraction that it now is - their aims would have been satisfied with very basic infrastructure and DMUs. It is what is is now because it primarily runs steam trains, and a logical extension of that should be that it should run carriages of older vintages than BR Mk 1s - and goods wagons too. In addition it should be doing more to provide museum displays in appropriate surroundings. to increase the all-round experience.

Some of that has been taken on board - the NYMR still operates steam trains, and nowadays it operates all the way to Whitby, but a lot of the rest has been lost in the gadarene to focus primarily on carrying those passengers to Whitby, rather than emphasising and enhancing what the charitable objective of the railway are really about - or am I wildly wrong? I think that at least a partial reset to basic thinking is well overdue!

 

Just an observation, but is it just my perception that this thread is more prone to getting Natpres members with an axe to grind to have a pop at the NYMR about anything that comes to mind without necessarily knowing the details?

It's all getting a bit tedious.