West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Hopefully drawn up by a legal firm if not legally valid.

 

Very poor coverage. Message conveyed to the public was that WSR reopens at the end of July but trains won't stop at Dunster.

 

This is the actual state of affairs, taken from WSR plc 3 year plan 2017-2019, published February 2017:

'SCC have agreed that we can start to offer licences, leases and memoranda of understanding to our partners up to the remaining term of the lease, which has some 73 years left to run.'

At the time the lease actually had 71 years left to run, 68 years now.

 

Hello Martin,

You are not correct in my highlighted bit of your post. The SDRT is entitled to protection and security of tenure under Part 2 ('business tenancies') of the Landlord and Tenant 1954. The WSR PLC board created a fiction to enable it to rely on one of the few statutory grounds under the Act. A fiction that, more importantly, it cannot prove; and was motivated by other vindictive agendas of... well I can't say!

This was all bread and butter stuff to me; if John Bailey is such the clever lawyer he claims to be, and extending the terms of his reference to provide 'a case fits all' solution to the set up of the WSR PLC/WSRA/WSSRT, I am surprised he has shown himself to be so inept and lacking of an understanding/knowledge of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 and as to how it applies to the SDRT.

This report is over a month with the parties, and still we have no decision by the WSR PLC board to rescind the 'Notice to Quit'.

Cheers,

Julian

 

It was very matter of fact, no advantage taken for an up-beat interview given the South West coverage of ITV - which is based in Bristol. Two people being interviewed also took away any real emphasis, in fact a distraction. Golden opportunity missed again.
In comparison the Dartmouth SR had very good publicity on BBC Spotlight South West. Full of confidence which probably will pay off.

 

Well that's hardly surprising given the conclusion the report came to!

 

Just been broadcast again on the 10.30pm programme:

www.itv.com/news/westcountry

Medieval village...

 

Sorry, Alan, I saw an elderly gent missing a PR opportunity, and he 'muffed it'!

But there is an underlying reason for this, in that I believe (well, informed) there is something going on with the WSR PLC staff contracts that is nasty and reprehensible to my mind as a former RMT Union 'rep' and Branch Secretary - with the threat of redundancy - or else.

 

This statement is not true though is it? The railway has chosen not to trade. Other railways such as the SVR and MHR are resuming operations, albeit in a new format.

Although the grand total of £185,000 from all organisations is a substantial amount of money, it seems somewhat underwhelming compared to other lines and especially if the rumours are correct that a substantial amount of the money came from the various groups based on WSR-perhaps this is the heritage world telling the WSR that their despicable behaviour will not be rewarded.

Keith

 

So now EIGHT separate appeals !!!!!!!!

 

.... grow fat squirrels.

 

There will always be multiple projects / appeals to contribute to.

We have to deal with the Railway as it is, not as we might like it to be - that will hopefully emerge from the Bailey process.

At least fundraising is now running through one channel, with common benefits from the principal organisations working together.

I guess the most important question is ‘have you made a contribution?’

 

What slightly surprised me was the reward scheme for high-value donations, while also collecting via the charity and aiming to recover Gift Aid. I thought that wasn’t allowed. So the Silver and Gold donations (of £2500 and £5000 respectively) come with travel benefits that have considerable and explicit value: it would be perfectly acceptable for the plc to offer that and not collect the Gift Aid, but I am surprised that by my reading, that benefit is offered regardless of which organisation you donate to, and elsewhere the benefits of donating to a charity for GA purposes are stressed.

I think it is admirable to try to simplify the message and co-ordinate fundraising, but that did surprise me. No doubt those involved have carefully considered what is and isn’t permissible within the Guft Aid scheme.

Tom

 

Thanks, but I have already added an edit to my post. The substance of my argument remains the same.

 

Thank you

We have.

 

It was a disappointing clip. Seems other things more upbeat were discussed and filmed but fell victim to the editor's scissors (but "informed" people already knew that )

Steve

 

Barrie, my memory is quite clear that, with respect to SCC approval wrt the WSR Plc
issuing inter alia sub leases, Professor Irven secured a relaxation such that
sub leases could be up to 25 years duration.

The above quotation which began"Fortunately, SCC have agreed "is carefully written
I think you will find the catch all "offer licenses, leases and MOUs" was exactly that
ie you can have a MOU for 71 years, a lease for 25 etc.

I think it can now be posted. Professor Irven's negotiations with SCC were
centred on seeking an extension of the SCC/PLC lease to 100 years ie to run
from 2016 to 2115 inclusive. ( this was structured around the concept that
some infrastructure improvements/rebuilds/new builds would have a
realistic life span > 100 years.)

John, was dissapointed at the outcome of his negotiations, and the sentence
in his Intro to the Business Plan may partly hide his frustrations.

( I am pleased that I got to know Professor Irven, a fine man )

Michael Rowe

ps The 2017-9 Business Plan IMHO was everything one should not be,
ie too long, full of wishes, what ' ifs ', 'maybes' , other than an
infrastructure spend which AFAIK had not been agreed by the Plc
Board etc. devoid of any financials. Whilst Professor Irven wrote the forward
to the document my understanding is he was in no way responsible for
the contents.

 

I think that if the WSR 'showed willing' by running at least a skeleton service, it might attract more donations. Of course, improving its image in the ways obviously shown on this thread, would also help.