West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Without the SCC agreeing to sell the freehold, it don't matter who holds what shares in what company, they can't profit from it, as things stand, but obtain the freehold, and its a changed situation, as straight away it opens up opportunities to turn railway land into a profitable venture, for instance, how much would Minehead station site be worth with planning permission for flats and apartments ? than money, and selling off non essential land, and the station buildings, or turning then into holiday lets, again create an income, that could be used to build a new restoration facility, on the line, or to rent a large building elsewhere, a former bus garage maybe? and centralise repairs and overhauls away from the railway,

 

Hurry up Matron!

 

Having looked at the record, I see a company jointly owned by the chair of the WSR plc and a developer, which is dormant. It’s reasonably recently formed, and both shareholders have a range of other business interests.

I therefore neither assume a connection with what may happen to the WSR nor discount the possibility of a Nabarro style situation arising again.


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Schools are back first week of September, so if you're not open in August, that's the season gone.

It can also be cheaper on coal to run a loco for 3-4 days in a row rather than 2 weekends.

 

Indeed if you’re not going to open in August, probably not worth opening this year at all.

Shame as I’m staying in Minehead next month. Looks like the L&B will be getting my money instead.

 

I agree completely.

 

True. There is always a danger of putting 2 and 2 together to make 5. However, there is no harm in keeping our eyes open!

 

Didn’t the group give up on that idea in the 1970s and opened it as a heritage railway instead?

 

Property Development Directors and Preserved Railway Company Directors are at best an unfortunate mix and so are the dates of incorporation of said Property Development Companies

 

Actually, we do know from the sections of the Bailey Report that have been put into the public domain that its author's terms of reference were not to act as a mediator or arbitrator.

The 2018 agreement that extended the S&DRT's tenure of the Washford site until 2070 lays down an Alternative Dispute Resolution process for dealing with disputes about any of its provisions. Under that process the Heritage Railway Association has the role of appointing an arbitrator who is to determine such disputes as remain unresolved.

It is apparent from the Bailey Report that an arbitrator's appointment has not yet been requested. Instead, the HRA accepted an invitation to “help and advise”. Some unnamed person suggested a “facilitated discussion with all relevant parties to see if they could identify an alternative way forward” (Bailey Report para. 1.2), and John Bailey accepted the invitation to lead this process.

The discussions currently taking place between the chairmen of the plc and the S&DRT may have resulted from John Bailey's intervention – in which case, good for him; job done. Unfortunately he chose, on his own initiative, to go much further and treat the plc-S&DRT dispute as the launchpad for a discussion of structural change to the governance of the WSR.

However urgent the need for such a discussion, it is not a means for resolving the dispute over the notice to quit, and the HRA and its representative John Bailey should have have been scrupulous in ensuring that the eviction dispute was kept in a compartment of its own. What we see instead is the part-publication, with its author's approval, of a report addressing both the eviction and the governance issue. John Bailey has made plain his opinions regarding the governance issue, apparently with no thought as to what speculation might consequently arise as to his unpublished views upon the eviction.

The opinions expressed by John Bailey both in his report and his subsequent posts on this thread will inevitably be associated with the HRA, whose representative he is. Both the plc and the S&DRT are entitled to expect the HRA to act with complete impartiality when appointing an arbitrator in accordance with the 2018 agreement, and that such appointment will be uninfluenced by any other agenda the HRA may have. The problem here is that observations along the lines of “Whether or not people like or approve of the current management of the PLC they are the only game in town” (Bailey Report para. 4.11) create an impression of how John Bailey - and by extension the HRA - view the decisions taken by the plc board, including the decision to give the S&DRT notice to leave Washford. Such impressions matter. How, in these circumstances, could the S&DRT have confidence that the HRA will act fairly and impartially if it is asked to appoint an arbitrator?

I was uneasy when I learned that the HRA was being asked to involve itself in the eviction dispute other than as appointer of an arbitrator, as envisaged by the 2018 agreement. I became a good deal more uneasy when part-publication of the Bailey Report revealed a conflation of the eviction dispute with the WSR's wider problems. Regrettably, it appears to me that it is John Bailey and the HRA who may have been placed in the middle of a quicksand by the conflation of these issues.

 

It was always my understanding that the West Somerset Railway Ltd was constituted to achieve both, but the Taunton Link was sadly abandoned after re opening in 1976

There are others on here who know more!

 

Can the HRA be regarded as being impartial when you see who is on their Board of Directors?

https://www.hra.uk.com/board-members

 

But those re-opening expenditures will occur whenever they re-open, whether it's in time for this years summer holidays, or next Easter.
There are also on-going costs no matter whether open or not; insurance, leases, etc

So, the risk is going to have to be taken anyway.


There are risks with not re-opening until 2021;
the public forget about you*
volunteers find other activities
supporters feel that there is nothing to support


*there are going to be considerable numbers of families not having foreign holidays this year, so they will be looking for activities. They are potentially new customers for heritage railways, & it's likely worth grabbing them now & trying to get them to come back next year as well.

 

I don't think that we should expect Minehead to be reconnected to the national network as a basic railway or otherwise. Feasibility studies are just a way of making excuses not to do anything, and I don't think we'll get a single mile of line reopened under the recent government 'initiative'.

It was wrong for the branch to be closed in 1971, but the only future is as a heritage line. So, let's try to avoid it being wrecked, because nobody is coming to the rescue under any 'Beeching Reversal'.

 

With two recent approaches to SCC for purchase of said line by?

 

But when will the survey end? It doesn't say...
It says it's for 'supporters', & it's tucked away on the 'News' tab...

Lets say the survey runs for 2 weeks, which gets you to the end of July.
Let's also say that the results are assessed really quickly & decisions are made in the first week of August.
It would be a miracle if the line could then re-open by the 15/16 August.
That would give 2 weeks of the Summer holidays.


So, it's a pointless survey because there isn't going to be the opportunity to do anything with the responses.

Oh, before anyone says it could be useful for Christmas/Santa specials, that's 4 months away, & were now at 4 months after shutdown. A lot of things could be radically different by then.