Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I am not sure if it was a written agreement that EA/YVT would only undertake the purchase of the trackbed south of Wistlandpound. But I consider that this may be the wrong place to have drawn the line.

I know that we now have Blackmoor PLC, but I can't help but think we should have changed that line to the A39 bridge at Blackmoor so the Trust deals with ENPA while EA deals with NDC.

Blackmoor could then become the joint meeting point between the two parts of the Railway, which, in turn could generate some money to help in a small way to rebuild part of the railway.

 

From the Facebook page, Giles Perkins has said that the slides and a video of the meeting will be posted shortly. A good step!

If there's going to be an 'Appeal Yes/No' question, then in order to make an informed decision, I want to see:

- the grounds for appeal,
- the costs of the appeal
- an assessment of the likelihood of success, and
- a business case for the CFL project.

We've been here before with the successive red line and s73 fiascos which were both more than £100k and which delivered nothing other than opprobrium.

As it stands at the moment, I see no sensible grounds for appeal, and the business case was never been made clear - it seeemed to be 'longer railway good' which is not the basis for spending rather more than £1m that the Trust doesn't appear to have.

Time, as I said upthread, for everyone to stop, to get a neutrally chaired meeting of all of the L&B family, and to jointly produce the full array of options. The last thing we need is an ill-informed knee-jerk appeal.

 

I am not sure if this is something that comes under RM3 or not, but I found this YouTube which might help with safety clearance at a point on a railway

 

I don’t think this is a fair or appropriate question for Trustees to put to the membership. We are unable to have the kind of background information required to judge the merits or otherwise, and I would not expect the trustees to publish all they know for good reason. This feels like a shift of responsibility that I don’t find comfortable.

 

Latest news regarding the previous planning permission for the Blackmoor to Wistlandpound,

See >>> https://www.lynton-rail.co.uk/news/view/blackmoor-gate-planning

 

Giles did say they will be "working up" the options so far identified, before presenting to the members, and that we have 6 months (from the planning decision) to appeal. Personally, I'm minded to vote "No" - there don't appear to be any conclusive grounds for an appeal, and unless we can fundamentally change our plan, the same reasons for refusal will apply. (Read the disclaimer in my signature)

 

I think your approach is right, @Old Kent Biker . The real issue is that an appeal has to be based on substantive errors in the Planners' report or unsupportable decisions by the Committee.

Neither apply.

CFL as proposed was a new, never before existing, station, on a new, never before existing, embankment, with (at best) contested road access - who actually owns Cricket Field Lane (the road) is not clear*, and so failed on visual impact and on heritage aspects, especially given the lack of obvious offsetting public benefit.

A successful appeal against that backdrop seems far-fetched, to say the least.

With extensions from Woody Bay fanciful at this point - there's no land owned from WB to Caffyns (the Dean Steep section is beyond that, and on the other side of the A39), and there's no point in applying to go to Parracombe which is very likely to be rejected. If I lived in Parracombe (or especially Churchtown), I'd be concerned about more traffic on a very narrow lane, too. So Parracombe will reopen, but only as a through Halt in the form it was when the rest of the line opens between BG and KL.

*I thought it was the Church of England, but some local landowners think it is theirs - it certainly doesn't belong to any bit of the L&B family

 

Thinking about all of this, I feel we should wake up and smell the coffee and make getting rid of all the debt hanging over the project the next thing to clear

 

That's a tough ask in fundraising terms.

"Give us some money to buy this strategic bit of land that brings ever closer the day we can reopen theL&B" - people will respond to that with cash.

"Give us some money so we can pay off the mortgage on a bit of land we already own" - not so likely.

Tom

 

Yes, it will certainly be a challenge and one to think about. I think it will be the way you phrase the question that will be important.

Of course, it will be a problem if (and I hope it doesn't) fail as a pub/restaurant, since it will mean having to buy it all over again.

I don't want to sound negative about this, but buying a pub with so many closing at the moment is going to be a hard ask to undertake

 

The L&B is going to have increasing struggles with fundraising, I fear.
At #14902,Toby refers to each of the more recent planning failures having cost iro £100,000, and I've no doubt this is close to the mark.
At #14877, Meatman mentions the trust having approx 2100 members, and I have no reason to doubt this.

So those abortive planning adventures have cost roughly £100 per member.
The pub purchase exploit has put the trust in the hole for what? £400 or £500 per member?
I know the trust members are not personally liable for that money, and nat-west aren't going to send the boys round to collect, but the L&B, and everyone's hopes for the future are on the line. Failure of the pub, a common enough event, would be financially catastrophic, possibly fatal.

If the formation averages 1 chain wide, thats 8 acres per mile, with decent agri land selling for around £10,000/acre, that's easily 2 miles of trackbed purchase thrown away, or a quarter of a Manning-Wardle, or 16,000 hours at the minimum wage.
If someone comes asking for money a second time, it is reasonable to ask "what happened to the last £50 I gave you?"

 

As I understand it the LBBC (pub) is a subsidiary of the LBRT and when the deal was done the pub had its own footprint and the Trust purchased the land that would take the new track bed alignment and booking office building so even if the pub failed and ended up in different hands the land needed for the railway was owned by the Trust, only a few people know the exact financial situation and tie up between Trust and Company so at a guess worst case scenario that the pub did fail would be that any monies invested in the shares purchased would be lost but it would be the LBBC that would be the written off company and as such shouldn't affect the Trust or the land needed for the railway. I'm definitely no expert in what would actually happen and I'm sure there are people here who could explain the process better but as I understand it any debt incurred by the LBBC should not be the responsibility of the LBRT

 

Well, yes, but even the greatest copywriter in the world will still find it an uphill task.

Experience elsewhere is that people don't donate for things already purchased. If a prime opportunity to purchase something of strategic value to the project arose, you could launch an appeal and people would give you the money. But if the vendor wanted a quick sale, so you used your general funds or a loan to buy it and then launched an appeal to replenish your funds - much much harder. Rightly or wrongly, people like to be enthused that what they are donating for is pushing the project forward, and "rebuilding finances" doesn't have the same wow factor as "buying the next strategic parcel of land".

Repaying debts just magnifies the problem: people can be very judgemental, and the natural response to an organisation trying to raise money to pay off a loan is often "well, you shouldn't have got into debt in the first place". In reality there may be very sound reasons to take out a loan (for example, to conclude a rapid sale at an advantageous price) but people rarely see things that way, instead perceiving it as throwing good money after bad.

Tom