West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Most enjoyable, thank you for posting this Keith.

Ben

 

Thanks to wsr.org/Latest Pictures for the following quote:

''Local BBC crew at Bishops Lydeard Station on 22 April 2020 filming for a feature about the WSR to be aired during the following week'' © Jon Jones-Pratt

That should be interesting. I wonder if it includes news of the eviction of the S&D Trust at Washford .....probably not <BJ>

 

Agreed, very true & very annoying waste of time & puts you off trying to see whats going on !

 

Ah, but is the WSR's lease "usual"?

I know that the WSR plc are tenants themselves, but if they were not, and owned the freehold, would wanting to sell the premises with vacant possession be reasonable grounds for an S30 (g) 'Notice to Quit'?

 

Here http://www.wsr.org.uk/news.htm#2022

 

Hi Bayard,

The Landlord and Tenant Act (part 2) 1954 does not allow a Landlord to evict a Business Tenant so it can sell the land occupied by the Tenant. Under the s.30 (g) grounds specified in the 'Notice to Quit' the Landlord has relied on the statutory grounds that it it intends to occupy/use the land for it's own purposes. Ergo, not to sell it on or re-let it to someone else.

The Head Lease is pretty much immaterial, or whether by 10th February 2021 the WSR PLC had acquired the freehold from Somerset County Council.

It would be highly irregular for a lease by a public body such as Somerset County Council not to include a forfeiture clause. As I stated the other day on here, I don't have a copy of the head lease between the SCC and WSR PLC, but I would be very surprised if there was no forfeiture clause.

Cheers,

Julian

 

Such matters should be handled by going into committee, which is an acceptable process. Editing out (redacting) sections of minutes is the wrong procedure and, therefore, immediately flags that something serious may be being hidden.

 

Well obviously something's being hidden, that's why it's been redacted! I genuinely don't think it's a cause for concern, and there have been many causes for concern on this thread over the last 5 years. The WSRA should be applauded for publishing minutes at all, not all railway organisations do, if it means some bits have to be redacted to make it possible to publish them, then that's better than nothing at all. In my experience he redacted bits in those sorts of circumstance are usually actually pretty boring, although admittedly this is the WSR...

 

If any land were to be sold for re-development, payment would presumably go to SCC as freehold owner. A cash-strapped council may well be attracted by the potential sale of the Minehead station site at some future date.

If the WSR had to vacate Minehead station, it would need new locations for both the locomotive and carriage works. My guess is that the loco works would most likely move to Williton, but that Washford would be one of the options to re-house the carriage works. And I seem to recall that, many pages back on this thread, Ian Coleby suggested a carriage works at Washford after the S&DRT had been evicted.

 

Sorry, FS, I've amended my original post to make my meaning clearer. There are recognised processes for recording the actions of a Board / committee and redacting minutes is not one of them. I can't recall ever seeing it done in more than fifty years of involvement in all sorts of organizations. I suspect that what we are discussing are not the Minutes themselves but an extract from them made available for general publication, in which case this should be (and may have been) clearly stated.

 

If I recall correctly this was for the WSSRT which is outside the scope of s.30 (g) grounds relied upon by the WSR PLC board in it's 'Notice to Quit' over the SDRT and Washford. The WSR PLC cannot legally evict the SDRT to be replaced at Washford by the WSSRT!

And is why on here and on another thread I have banged on about the WSSRT not supporting the SDRT over all this, and instead supporting the WSR PLC board, and asking questions of Ian Coleby on here etc.

Cheers,

Julian

 

It seems to me that the WSSRT are putting the interests of the WSSRT ahead of the WSR and the WSR family. They rather sell out other members of the family to advance their own interests.

People like Jones Pratt always do well when there are self serving 'useful idiots' to help them achieve their aims.

The silence of the two main WSR organisations is deafening, all the while the line is losing money and groups are being driven out or threatened with eviction.

 

Personally, I prefer redaction - the existence of something is clear, even if not what.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

In my background, continuity of documentation is important and so redaction would be quite the event. In fairness though, I've never had to publish anything so that would make a difference. Perhaps a discussion on the mechanics of an AGM would be enlightening (though not in here - heaven forfend!)?

 

Or plans to turn the railway into a private company, and maybe run trains to Taunton in association with the group from Minehead. Keith

 

....and from where would they get all the money to do all the necessary upgrades and pay for all the additional overheads?

 

From wherever they're getting the money from to buy the freehold presumably....

 

Funny that - on the Web the report form Mark Smith says "..The board is naturally doing what it can to conserve our cash reserves. We have stopped as much expenditure as possible....."