GWSR Broadway Developments

None of which would make TR timetabling any less attractive!

I've no handle on the sequence of events regarding facilities at Broadway, but have a dreadful feeling that the lessons surrounding the design of the building seem to have not sunk in as completely as might've been hoped. There's an inescapable and rather depressing sense of déjà vu to all this.

 

Well Breva will get my vote!

What was that line in the film Field of Dreams, ah yes, "If you build it they will come."

Have Management conducted any on train surveys to estimate demand for a cafe at Broadway? It is a terminus after all and more people will be using it than Winchcombe which supports a cafe but is a passing place. Have volunteers been actively canvassed to ascertain enthusiasm and availability for manning a cafe? Won't this be an attractive post at future recruitment fairs for those not fit enough for heavy outdoor jobs?

Hopefully recent Management changes will see a less anti- heritage bias than hitherto, but in the meantime it seems its back to the barricades!

I mean what is the point of building a Heritage chimney if you don't have a Heritage fireplace feeding it Heritage smoke.

 

Don't get the decisions at all, just stinks of someone flashing their ego about, wanting the last word. It would make sense if this order has come from the same quarters as the crappy chimney, and the supermarket canopy. Even if a cafe is not viable, that doesn't equate to turning it into a shop, there's other rooms for that. If I had my say, and I was presented with the information that a cafe couldn't be done, I'd instead turn it into a nice mess room for the station group volunteers, after all they deserve it for all they've done, more so than a container/building site office that they have to put up with at the end of the platform, I'm sure they'd appreciate a warm fire on cold days anyway .

 

Anyway, I hope that plans could change, after all, I like to think that it was the comments on here and the blog that forced through the changes to the chimneys to make them more heritage, and the comments on jo's blog post where it was mentioned that the cafe is no longer happening accrued 70+ comments of varying reaction as of today, this rattled the cages enough to prise a public comment from the director no less, so maybe some back-pedalling could be about to occur, let's hope!

 

I have read the Boardroom blogpost by Richard Johnson, Company Secretary with some amusement.

Quote '" there has been no sudden change of plan as has been erroneously reported" was his rather sniffy comment. Obviously aggrieved that daylight has now been shone on this under the counter approach to dish the aspirations of Broadways hard working volunteers.

SO, Mr Johnson when was this decision, taken in 2015 apparently, reported on YOUR blogpost? I see no mention of it.

Was it communicated to shareholders that the building they were funding was undergoing a partial change of use? Was the Council informed.?

Instead you have kept quiet while volunteers happily debated the name of the new Cafe they thought they were building. Will it be the Honey Pot was one suggestion. Yet you keep quiet.

I am sorry it is too late in the day to say that a shop was planned all along, because, apart from a small circle of Directors. who knew?

 

I would have thought that the station at Broadway would potentially bring in new volunteers from that end of the line who might well enjoy working in a cafe there.

 

Or indeed what the Broadway volunteers will do once they've finished building it. Worth an ask at any rate.

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Are the directors of the GWSR fit for purpose ? , recent problems over Broadway appears to cast a question mark over some of the directors suitability to hold that office, non heritage fitments , that were out of place, and were only changed when the building group went public over it, then you have this if you have changed the layout from the agreed plans as applied on the planning , you are potentially in breech of the planning rules, it all does not paint the railway in a very good light if i can be honest, whilst i agree the extension and rebuilding from the ground up should have been a thing of pride, i appears to me, and possibly the greater public who has an interest to be almost bringing the railway into disrepute , not from the builders but from directors who clearly do not share the same views as what the railway should be about, an authentic re creation of a former GWR route including the building of replacement buildings lost in the same design of what was lost.

 

Are the directors of the GWSR fit for purpose ?

I think in light of the latest episode of deceit and misdirection the answer has to be a resounding NO!

Some will no doubt say that they are all hardworking volunteers etc etc.

But again and again they exploit the enthusiasm of other hard working volunteers and then at the last moment, in a fait accompli present another secret agenda to the build that no one, on a Heritage Railway at least, could possibly contemplate.

A last minute visit to the site by the late Project Director and then Finance Director to announce to a stunned audience at BAG the non heritage canopy. A frantic fund raising effort made necessary by the announcement of plastic windows in the Signal box. The appearance overnight of nondescript chimneys.

Again and again they invite a furore by volunteers and shareholders alike by displaying bad faith instead of openness and consultation.

The controversy over the cafe, and the arrogant attempt to sweep it under the carpet by the Company Secretary, (nothing to see here!).
confirms it.

I presume that in their previous working lives they were addicted to the theory of Mushroom Management. Keep the workers in the dark and then throw s++t over them.[/QUOTE]

 

[/QUOTE]
in that case, i would say you may have to think about an EGM to unseat them, assuming enough people can be found to stand in their place have you descussed this with our resident Legal Eagle?

 

NO NO NO NO *NO*. Unless there's an alternative board with better experience ready in place to be voted in, and given the fact we're lucky if we have one more candidate than there are directorships I find that unlikely, that's just rocking the boat for no reason. Much better to discuss the issues with the existing board, they have at least listened before, although I totally agree I wish we didn't have to do it that way.

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As a mere armchair enthusiast, the more I read of the whole Broadway saga, the more amazed I become.

Surely, at the start of the process a detailed plan was produced, if only as part of the planning process. Whilst I realise that initially outline permission is normally granted, is this not followed up with detailed plans in order to get full permission?

I'd have thought such things as canopy details, chimney design, purpose of the facilities etc would be an integral part of it. For example, isn't the purpose of a building an integral part of the process? You can't, for example, simply buy a shop on the high street and decide to sell food. You need the correct permission. So was a cafe part of the submitted plans or not? Or a retail outlet?

It seems to me that there is some "fake news" knocking about, in an attempt to rewrite the history of this, and thereby justify what seems to be a unilateral attempt to make last minute changes, but surely the veracity of some of the statements can be determined by looking up the documents submitted to the local authority. Most have them available online, don't they?

And apart from the planning aspect, I really can't understand why, if the shop, the modern awning, etc etc were always a part of the plan, and the powers that were comfortable with that, they didn't include such details in regular publicity during the planning and building phase. The fact that even the hard working volunteers, who have given years of hard work at the coalface, so to speak, knew nothing of it, speaks volumes.

 

https://plan.wychavon.gov.uk/plandisp.aspx?recno=43635

 

It is incumbent on those of us who object to this rough shod method of forcing a trinket store rather than a Cafe to write to the Company Secretary Richard Johnson, and make our opinions known as shareholders. Otherwise the Board is going to ride rough shod as usual over volunteers and shareholders alike.

The link is here

https://www.gwsr.com/index.php?p=Contact_Us&type=good&msg=Message+sent,+thank+you+for+your+enquiry

My own reads as follows

Sir

As a shareholder I understood from the published plans that there was to be a cafe at Broadway station which was one of the reasons I subscribed. I had in mind the pleasant atmosphere at Winchcombe.

Now you tell me that two years ago you decided against this.

When was this communicated to shareholders? And if it hasn't been why is it only being revealed now at the last moment?

Will you please assure me that this decision, which I object to, will be reconsidered.

At the very least will you make such provision at Broadway by way of plumbing and wiring that a future Cafe may be constructed there as indicated in your published plans.

 

From the design and access document 5.1 in the planning permission ( from link provided above) " waiting room/shop with small kitchen/ snack bar ". No mention of the shop on the layout plan.

 

Never mind fake news, if the boardroom blog entry published this morning is anything to go by, an Orwellian Ministry of Truth complete rewrite of history is under way.

 

Interesting that the plan (BW010) contains rooms clearly labelled as "kitchen" and "waiting room / cafe", while the general description ("Design and access") states (section 5.1) "The building is being designed to include a walk-through booking hall, toilets and waiting room / shop with a small kitchen / snack bar."

Tom

 

I think it would be more effective to write to the company and give your point of view as a stakeholder. (Shareholder, donor, GWRT member, volunteer, customer etc). 60 comments on the blog announcement, almost all in favour of the cafe, did not prevent the rebuttal posted on the boardroom blog this morning.

 

What's the situation with the 'car park' if someone could enlighten me please , the subject seems to have come up in the blog comments but I had no knowledge of it, supposedly a piece of land that was to be sold to the council so they could charge people for its use as a car park.