West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Not going to disagree, but trust and integrity are all part and parcel of delivering those too...feels like there are lots of areas where the rules are being stretched.

 

Andy - its high time you stopped posting here regarding your personal situation as only you perceive it. If your posts are to continue perhaps a A, Norman separate thread would be more suitable.

Quite frankly whatever the outcome of your meeting today is I do not see it as relevant to a WSR Ops thread, more a matter between you & the chairman.

 

What favours?

A mortgage is a loan...
& the most recent ones, there are 2, are with Lloyds Bank plc. They won't be 'favours'.

If JJP is the only game in town, what happens if...he finds a new hobby, he dies, he falls out with people, etc etc

 

Certainly the shoulders of the season could operate on a shortened line, eg. Minehead-Watchet.
You could run an equally frequent service with less locos & carriages out in use, & less volunteers.

That at least gives more time, in hopefully better conditions, to do infrastructure works.

 

With talk on here of mortgages, and the reported offer to sell Thornbury Castle, I looked up Companies House records for KINLET HALL & THORNBURY CASTLE LTD (sic).

As at Feb 2018 (last y/e) it had loaned £104k to its parent (JJP (Holdings) SW Ltd) and had little cash in hand or at bank. There are better bean counters on here than me but my interpretation is that the parent is repaying the loan which generates cash to pay for Kinlet's overhaul. Should that be insufficient it would have to raise capital or loans, or dispose of an asset.

Since then it has notified charge code 0158 5117 0002 (created 27 June 2019) with Shawbrook Bank Ltd for up to £378k loan, secured against 9466 at the WSR.

18/19 accounts are due at year end.
Patrick

 

Policy is policy, & you not only have to follow them all, but be seen to be doing so.

There is a suggestion/statement that a specific policy has not, or is not, being followed.

 

Anyone want a nose clip?

 

However, you can't spend nothing on longer term maintenance & assume that a future grant will pay for it.

If you know that bridge X will need major works in 10 years time at ~£250k, then you do your best to set aside £25k a year into reserves for those 10 years.
Even if you can't meet that target every year, there will at least be something in the pot, which reduces the amount of fundraising to be done in a hurry, or/& the size of grant being applied for.

Also, many many grants are match funding, & the funders ask questions that must be answered with evidence
(the obvious ones in the above example being 'When did you know of the works required?' & 'What have you done in that time?')

 

The loan to the parent company was £198,095, & it's interest free.

 

Remind me, when did / will 9466 ( a red route loco as it happens) arrive on the WSR ?

https://www.crosvillevintage.co.uk/...owells-former-gwr-0-6-0-pannier-tank-no-9466/

 

9466 was on the line briefly around the time of the Vintage Vehicle and Steam Rally and worked on the BL-NF section which is red route. It has since moved the GWSR and is being used there.

Marcus

 

errrr....

So KH&TC Ltd has taken out a loan, & secured it on a loco that it doesn't own (?)

 

I presume they do own it, even though it's hired out to a different railway at the moment.

 

https://www.crosvillevintage.co.uk/...owells-former-gwr-0-6-0-pannier-tank-no-9466/

Nothing on the websites for
http://www.thornburycastle7027.co.uk/
http://www.kinlethall.co.uk/


This is Crosville Vintage Ltd
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/09795686

 

Crosville Vintage and KH&TC are both effectively controlled by Jon Jones-Pratt, though.

 

https://www.clarkewillmott.com/news/getting-west-somerset-railway-back-on-track/

 

Of concern to me is that via Bob Meanley's post 22030 0n Monday, he appears to be keeping detailed notes of conversations he has had and recording them in respect of at least one volunteer, then making them public or at the very least alluding to these records in his post 22030.

None of that detail is required by him ordinarily to add to an official file. I have had some experience of this as an RMT union official dealing with disciplinary hearings and disputes.

If Bob Meanley is keeping private notes of what volunteers say to him and when, then that is to my mind very concerning. (I also encountered this on one occasion with a manager when I was a RMT union official. That manager was subsequently dismissed).

There was much criticism of the previous (and previous) WSR PLC boards, yet I cannot see how since JJP has been appointed as Chairman of the WSR PLC board that it is in a healthy state of affairs. A very small board, seriously delayed accounts, and as Andy Norman has pointed out, a complete failure to institute HR policy and delete it so far as volunteers are concerned at exactly the time he had need to make use of it.

Bob Meanley's own interventions and posts on here earlier this week frankly dismay me!

Cheers,

Julian Atkins

 

NCVO in their comprehensive guidance documentation make it very clear that volunteers are not employees and that totally separate policies and arrangements need to exist. They give a stark warning of the danger of using employee policies and processes to cover volunteers and HR concerns of volunteers.
Note - that does not mean that an organisation cannot be rules based and that volunteers are required to follow the rules while they are volunteering.

 

I know nothing of clarke wilmott's competence or otherwise as a business, but that page of theirs leaves a lot to be desired. Take this statement: "changes were needed to deliver a modern railway industry including heritage lines". What does it mean? Are some words missing?

There seem be some missing words from the fourth paragraph as well:
"A new board was formed having appointed Jonathan Jones-Pratt in September 2018 as Interim Chairman who soon became elected as permanent Chairman, decided to close the railway in January 2019, not over safety concerns as had been reported but to focus on delivering on the improvements that were required to make the railway fit for purpose."

Here's my putative reading:
"A new board was formed having appointed Jonathan Jones-Pratt in September 2018 as Interim Chairman who soon became elected as permanent Chairman. The board then decided to close the railway in January 2019, not over safety concerns as had been reported but to focus on delivering on the improvements that were required to make the railway fit for purpose."

 

I agree with your interpretation (the original seems to be another "bullshit baffles brains" effort) but what is the distinction between "safety concerns" and "fit for purpose" as used in the report ? If there were not safety concerns then why was the railway closed and what was the panic ? The implication is that the track condition was poor but could continue to be used over a period of time (i.e. not safety critical, yet ) allowing for the gradual fixing of the problems.