Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I and others are merely curious as to the basis for a decision that is, at face value, lacking in legal legitimacy.

If the candidacy has been rejected on grounds of, say legal ineligibility to be a trustee, then it would be perfectly possible to make a simple statement of that fact.

Instead, and with no knowledge of the individual or her views, nor indeed of whether I’d even be likely to vote for her if offered the opportunity, I’m instead left in the uncomfortable position of being unsure of the legitimacy of the entire process.

As for why, the issue at stake is about the ability to recreate your grandmother’s memories from 90 years ago. The plan chosen may be the right one, but as a further attempt at what’s already failed, I’d have more confidence if it were not pursued as an exercise in power politics.


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Is this a squirrel?

 

It's about accountability, fairness and good governance - things that are worth fighting for, and will be foundational to our future success.

 

Exactly, spot on, and how could these actions affect future funding should they be left unchecked

 

Very nicely said, @35B - I've no idea what Anne's platform was - but she has the right to have that platform.

 

Regarding your somewhat insulting comment many of us have spent a good deal of our lives in trying to reinstate the L&B. What you seem incapable of understanding is the 'nastiness' to which you refer is wholly attributable to the gross incompetence of the Trust Board and its failure to deliver on its mandate to secure the necessary planning permission to commence the reinstatement of the line through Parracombe. The members, many of whom have donated not only significant amounts of money to the cause but also their time, have a justifiable right to feel aggrieved with the Trust's failure and its subsequent attempts to evade its responsibilities for the debacle. Why don't you direct your criticism to where it is justified, ie to the Trust board and not the members who are only trying to find out what the hell is going on?

 

Go on! Go on! Bring down everything that has been achieved at Woody Bay and everything that has been recreated - a new fabulous loco and the carriages, and Woody Bay station. Go on! Go on!

For what? Because of a s.73 application that I and many others consider was worth doing?

For what? Because of something relating to candidates for the AGM, and some narrow minded perceived irregularity - that I consider to be utterly misplaced.

For what? A spat over the signal box and the new refreshment room at Woody Bay? A spat over a potential sector plate at Parracombe? Someone’s nose out of joint no longer being consulted?

My late Grandma would have been very pleased to see all that has been achieved so far, just as she was very pleased to see the IOWSR run just 1 and a half miles from Havenstreet to no where for 20 odd years (another bit of railway that she subsequently knew and loved).

 

As can be seen the damage has sadly already been done, it is now down to the Trust members to find away through all of this slow train wreck to bring back the confidence that is needed to progress this project, if there was a simple way forward don't you think it would have been found and tried by now?

I for one find it sad that this has happen again, no body in their right mind wants this, but we now have to deal with it, it is like a deck of cards you start with something small only to end up with a whole load of issues which have been bubbling away for some time and have not been dealt with.

As I see this there are now more questions than answers, which is not a good place to be in for any heritage railway group, up until now we have only been interested in either the Trust or the CIC, but what about Exmoor Associates or the Yeo Valley Trust this has to have a knock on effect at a local level and what about the 762 club or Blackmoor ISHO support.

I can assure anyone this is not being done lightly or on a whim, we have been told that the CIC had a good year we did? Then how was it, that it only made a £14.00 profit after a tax relief return?

Members on here might like to take a look at both sets of accounts and ask any questions they have about those as well.

 

Democracy is often considered to be misplaced by tyrants and their lackeys.

 

But if you look at the big picture this could have been much worse and we could still lose everything if OSHI fails, as I understand it the Trust has made a loan to the OSHI PLC company, I am not sure if that is legal or not and as to what assets may have been used from around the railway as collateral to fund the purchase of the OSHI no one knows. So your fabulous Baldwin steam loco (of which I am a subscriber) and the carriages could all be in hock and you want us to get a life?

The L&BR Trust is owned by the members and it is down to the membership to keep the Trustees on the straight and narrow however pain full it might look to the outside world, I dread what else might still come out from this, I just hope that we will have done enough to save what we have.

 

Perhaps you could explain your interpretation of these various pieces of legislation as they pertain to the situation in hand. Or, given the lack of detail in your posts, are you just hoping that Bullshit baffles Brains ?

 

A thought gleaned from another thread which is examining improper behaviour in the HR world :
" If railway heritage wants to retain the worst attitudes of the 1970’s towards women, minority groups or anyone who deviates slightly from the relevant ‘Dear Leader’ that’s fine - just don’t expect the public to come, or support from public bodies or grant-making charities."
Food for thought !

 

These are all fine achievements you note. So there should be no need to cast doubt on any of it by excluding someone from standing for election ultra vires, those achievements should be able to speak for themselves, if that is indeed relevant to what is being voted on.

I have no skin in this game, and no vote, but as an outsider looking in, preventing someone from even standing for election doesn't reflect well on incumbents. Given the various difficulties I'd have thought being seen as being squeaky clean in all manners of governance and behaviour to be paramount.

 

If my voting papers ever arrive I will consider a write-in vote for Anne Belsey and no votes for any of the old guard ...

 

As someone who has, on other matters, been very precise on the importance of both substance and form, I’m surprised and disappointed to see you take this stance.

In some ways, I agree with you. It’s why, for example, I’ve taken the view that it’s not worth getting hung up on the finer points of when notice of the AGM was provided.

However, as matters a few miles east have shown over a decade or so, those small things do mount up. Especially when they sit across existing fracture lines.

I would like to think that the current dispute over candidacy is a storm in a teacup. Ditto the failed S.73 application.

However, for that to be true will require a willingness to work towards reconciliation of the different factions, not an exercise in power. This thread tends, with a few conspicuous exceptions, not to reflect the views of the trust leadership but to be dominated by those of their opponents within the trust.

Both sides, and all their subsidiary factions, need to find space to form peace and agree a way forward, collaboratively and harmoniously. That plan may or may not align with the options currently shared, and it may or may not be led by those currently leading.

That process will not be helped by brick throwing by those opposed to the current leadership. Nor, and perhaps especially, will it be helped by apparent power plays by that leadership.

The effect of such disputes is to waste time, energy and money. Some of that will be money expended. Possibly more will be money lost from donors.

All for unwillingness to transparently follow the organisation’s own rules. Something that, if Anne Belsey really can’t stand as a trustee, should be capable of being addressed in a single paragraph.


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I too noticed the £14 profit of the operating Company for 2022 compared with one of £130,295 the previous year, which would have been a loss of £914 but for a tax refund. I was roundly condemned a while ago for advising caution on confirming the appointment of a fitter until the extension situation was clarified in view of the cost of living crisis likely affecting the visitors to North Devon, and therefore the Company's income this year. I was told a fitter was essential - if we had no fitter we'd have no railway, it was said. I was even told I was 'a typical accountant'. Which I may have been - I was indeed an accountant until I retired, but I was a realistic one, having seen too many financial disasters in my working life as a result of people not being prepared to be objective and face reality until it was too late, and ignoring advice offered. In the precarious financial situation the CIC appears to face making no return on capital why the necessity to have a paid one ? Several other railways (much bigger than this one) survive with few or even no paid employees. According to the CIC accounts there are 7 employees, I assume most part-time. Unfortunately there are people who think that the rules, financial and legal, that apply in business can be ignored when involving a hobby.

 

Michael yes I remember you where criticized very badly for that view, I did the same at the time and asked why, but like you I was given the same answer in that one was needed, but with the cavate this will help with the extension, so I take it that now we don't have an extension does than mean we don't need a fitter? Or just like the trustees have I now linked two total independent issues, but have somehow come up with the answer of 5?

 

Interesting idea.

 

I rather think you should take a step back from making emotional rants which do little to advance your case or indeed, resolve the fundamental issues that bedevil the Trust.

First, no-one is trying to ‘Bring down everything that has been achieved…’ as you egregiously allege. On the contrary, the members are simply trying, as is their right, to understand the reasons for the failure of the Trust Board to implement the S.73 application. Given the ‘Grampian Conditions’ which were known from the very beginning confounded by the Grob’s pathological objection to reinstatement, the question is, was there any realistic chance that the Trust could fulfil its remit? The intervening five years culminating in abject failure clearly indicates that it was severely limited and that the Trust’s optimism was based on unicorn dust rather than brutal pragmatism.

Second, there is the unanswered question over Arup’s involvement in the S.73 application and the errors that are alleged to have occurred in the original submission regarding the route of the reinstatement. The Trust has stubbornly maintained its stance of omerta refusing to either admit or deny, that mistakes were made in the planning application, let alone disclose who is responsible for the errors in the first place. If the costs for these corrections, which have been estimated to be well into six figures are accurate, members have a right to demand an explanation.

Third, there is no such thing as, ‘…some narrow-minded perceived irregularity’ as you assert. Trusts have a legal obligation to adhere strictly to their Code of Governance. It is clear from an examination of the Trust’s MoA&A that the Board (and certainly not the secretary) has no discretionary power to exclude a valid submission from a member to be balloted for election to the Board. It is thus acting ultra vires and in breach of its own governance code. To assume, as you have, that such an ‘irregularity’ is merely ‘narrow-minded’ or ’perceived’ is to facilitate an environment in which unscrupulous Trust Board members can adopt a laissez faire attitude to rules and run the organisation as an oligarchy.

In the case of Anne Belsey, the decision taken by the secretary to exclude her from the forthcoming ballot is based upon an arbitrary pre-judgment of her alleged infractions. Such action is contrary to the Common Law principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ That the secretary and by implication, the Trust Board, has seen fit to usurp this principle without providing an iota of substantiating evidence to justify their stance, displays either breath-taking arrogance or gross stupidity, possibly both. As I am sure you will appreciate, this extremely serious matter, cannot even with the most generous expansion of utility, be considered a ‘spat.’

As I have said to you previously, you would find it more profitable to put your grievances directly to the Board rather than just air them aimlessly at those who are trying their best to find answers and who actually are key to fulfilling your Grandma’s dream.

 

The only real problem with the sector plate at PE was the locals did not like it, and what they saw as the potential consequences of it, a situation not helped by the fact that the Trust's Sec 73 application had failed to explain for the wide public exactly what its function would be and why it was deemed necessary.

As regards the SB and the new Tea Room, any so-called 'spat' arose because of the fact that (a) those drafting the plans had failed to use up-to-date plans of the station site and (b) failed to liaise with the other stakeholders at WB who would be affected by it. Had it proceeded i/a/w the original plans then (a) if any serious problem had developed with the lever-frame it could have been almost impossible to access it for repair and (b) the additional work required to support Phase 2A (and possibly even some early upgrades to the existing Phase 1 arrangements) could not have been accommodated other than by building a replacement SB elsewhere. Of course, the problem was not helped by the fact that COVID restrictions hampered the process of getting S&T staff on-site to quantify the extent of the problem in a very short timescale :-( A lot of hard work in the background almost went down the pan.....