East Lancs Railway

It is not a secret. Maybe it is to some.
https://www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk/meet-the-directors/

 

So is Mike Kelly Chairman of the The East Lancashire Light Railway Co Ltd or some other group. The statement he put out on April 7 just talks about East Lancs Railway.
As we used to say at work, organisations are complex to protect the guilty

 

That doesn’t answer the question. The company is led by the directors but they do not own it - it is a charity, therefore the directors are also Trustees.

 

This is all they have as a statement almost 2 weeks since Joanne's statement? This is all bread and no filling where I'm sitting.

 

Directors are also "trustees" of the shareholder's funds..the shares. I'm not sure about the charity status, but directors can hold shares in their company. It should give them the incentive to increase share value.
I think the situation is, I stand to be corrected...the company has charitable status?

 

Mike Kelly is a director of the Light Railway Co. according to Companies House

 

Both organizations are listed as Registered Charities on the Charity Commision web site. To complicate things for you there is also a holding company that is listed as a charity.

The East Lancashire Railway Preservation Society is also registered with companies house.
As is the East Lancashire Light Railway Company
As is the East Lancashire Railway Company.
As is the East Lancashire Railway Holding Company.
As indeed is the East Lancashire Railway Trust.

As is often the way with Heritage Railways it would seem structures are complex.

 

And, as also relevant elsewhere, the actions of one part of the family can easily impact upon others who are innocent of any involvement.


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I can understand an arrangement where the ELRPS owns/leases the railway and has a subsidiary to run the railway but I'm getting the impression that this isn't the case, especially as the ELLLRC appears to be limited by Guarantee. Even more confusing is that earlier, going to the 'Meet the Directors' page on their website brought up lots of pretty pictures of them with a potted CV but now nothing. At least for me.

 

Odd indeed, but the link does appear to have been removed. Fortunately, the Wayback machine is your friend, and a snapshot of the page from two days ago reveals the link in all its glory, from which the PDF still exists ... https://www.eastlancsrailway.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Meet-the-directors-2pp-2022.pdf

Why the web page once linked to that PDF, and now doesn't, I couldn't explain.

Tom

 

Interesting to note that Joanne Crompton is a Director of the ELRPS.

I also note that the link to the ELLRC “Meet the Directors” page has indeed been taken down. Having read some of the comments posted on twitter, I wonder if somebody is concerned about their personal safety.

This statement upthread does seem rather odd for the ELRPS to have made at this time, unless they’re trying to make a very strong point to other members of the railway “family”. Looks like a head of steam could be building up internally, but to the majority of the general public the ELR is the ELR and they have no reason to distinguish between various members of the “family”.

How any heritage railway thinks it can afford to make such a spectacular own goal in the current financial environment is beyond me, but if the continuing adverse comments on twitter are anything to go by, there are plenty of people who are simply not going to let this matter go, and the immediate problem would seem to be to prevent a self-inflicted PR disaster from becoming a financial disaster for the railway as a whole.

 

It seems to me not insignificant that Joanne remains a director of one of the bodies despite having been sacked by one of the others.

 

Well it's now made the Torygraph...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/16/steam-train-sexism-row-female-driver-elr-sack/

 

Or

https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https:...team-train-sexism-row-female-driver-elr-sack/

 

Ms Crompton claimed that the line’s general manager, Tracey Parkinson, wanted “to protect the reputation of the railway”.

This line above from the article is about on a par with Putin's claim the war is to stop NATO being near Russia's borders. Seems to have worked equally badly for both of them.

 

Well, unlike Putin, I think that is a plausible motivation for the GM's actions. Of course "protecting the reputation" is a rather pleasant-sounding way of putting it.

 

Well, I will be boycotting this railway from now on.

 

Has there been any further development on this? It whipped up a frenzy before suddenly going quiet.

 

There was a comment by Nigel Harris on his twitter account about an inappropriate text Ms Crompton had received week or so ago, The East Lancs has also now disabled comments on its Twitter account after the amount of flak it was getting on anything it put out on it.
It’s also been picked up by several newspapers both local and national.

 

Well she has tweeted for volunteers to run the Standard 4 Group shop on the ELR so it cant be said that she's knocking the line