West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Were the worst come to the worst, clearly the PLC owns locomotives, rolling stock, etc, SCC owns the land & buildings, but who owns the track & signalling? Is it the PLC or SCC?

 

30 bookings so far.

 

Anyone on here connected to organise WSRA steam rally. Heard there may be a possible road run Aug 1st. Would like to speak to someone. Have an idea

 

On the Gift Aid, that does sit well with me where the attraction is genuinely a charity. It used to be abused (I remember feeling as you do at Chatsworth once), but now that there has either to be a premium paid (as the NT do) or extra provided by the charity (annual admission at the Eden Project) in return for the extra, I feel that’s fair exchange when the charity’s way of working means that visitors are unlikely to donate having paid admission.


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I might just be more hardline than you about what constitutes altruism. The premium seems to be generally 10%, in exchange for which the charity can reclaim Gift Aid on the whole amount. So hypothetically, if a full ticket is £20 but I agree to pay £22, the charity can reclaim £5.50 in Gift Aid - but I would feel that my "donation" has only been £2, not £22 - the rest of what I paid was for something with a known value, i.e. the ticket.

Good luck to those attractions who get it to work, and I must admit that when asked, I tend to pay. But it still doesn't feel technically correct to me, even though I am sure that those attractions that do operate like that are doing so on the basis of a clear understanding of the law.

Tom

 

That is rather academic, as the WSR PLC board are going to charge £5 on 2 weekends basically to have free bus rides and see a loco in steam shunt about and get spun about on a turntable. That appears to be all the WSR PLC board can manage currently.

 

I administer Gift Aid and believe that where a charity is entitled to benefit from Gift Aid on donations, it shouldn’t be disadvantaged by the fact it charges admission.

But we digress


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But in Tom's scenario, his donation is £2 not £22, so the charity should be only claiming the GA on the £2. They are not being disadvantaged in any way by doing this - the donation remains £2, the admission is £20 and should be regarded as a separate element of funds. This would seem to me to be the more 'honest' interpretation of the rules.

Keith

 

The rules are explicit, no loopholes involved. But I accept it’s an ethical choice


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As I understand it, at least one of the locos is mortgaged, so effectively belongs to the bank and I think several of the carriages belong to the WSRA. There are charges listed on Companies House against the PLC for all its freehold and leasehold property and all its 'machinery and plant' - I'm not sure if the term machinery and plant could be viewed as covering locos, carriages, DMUs etc. It's quite possible that it's all mortgaged.

Keith

 

I don't see how your comment is in anyway related to a discussion on possible future structures and the application of GA?

While you may be annoyed about the PLCs offering, it has nothing to do with the current topic of the thread.

Keith

 

This may be of interest.

https://www.wsra.org.uk/2020/07/09/petition-response-published/

Responses from non-members welcomed.

 

All in hock. Is there where that 'magic' profit came from? Presently it seems that it will take some years to pay it off.

 

But it does relate rather more directly to the title of the thread than most of the content on here

I'm not sure you can call them free if you've had to pay admission

 

I wonder if the free bus ride comes courtesy of Crossville motor services!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosville_Motor_Services_(Weston-super-Mare)

 

Crosville Vintage maybe. Look them up on the internet, they advertise a steam experience too. And the company director is? No prizes offered for either guessing or knowing the answer.

 

Someone who is not a director of the WSR Plc! Is there a prize for that answer?

I understand from sources one of the reasons the WSR are not going to run trains at this living museum event is due to social distancing issues in the carriages and the lack of available compartment stock. If they cant offer social distancing inside a open coach, how can they offer this inside a bus? A railway coach is much larger and therefore social distancing should be much easier to offer.

And I assume they have considered that facemasks will be required for all people travelling on the bus, just like if I was to pay First group for the privilege of travelling on one of there buses around Minehead?

 

Swanage ran a replacement bus service once between Wareham and Norden. This was during a diesel gala where it wasn’t possible to run a train service between the stations as had been hoped.