Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Who is (I fear I may have missed something further up)?

 

I believe that this is a reference to @Lineisclear, who I believe is a retired solicitor. Whether corporate (and if so, with what specialisms) or any other variety of solicitor, I have no idea.

 

Making a North Devon version of Bressingham might be currently be too ambitious, but to develop an Engineering function and test track to train volunteers, and give talks and safe demonstrations to schoolchildren should be doable and promote local good will.

 

Personally I wouldn't have anything like that at Blackmoor for a couple of reasons. There isn't as much space at Blackmoor as you think. There are dwellings alongside, the cattle market nearby, and the fields on the A39 southbound soon fall away.
Additionally the land to the north of the A399, and west of the A39 southbound is ENPA where its probably much harder to get permissions needed for that type of development so the most favourable "quadrant" is where the station is being NDDC.
It would get crowded due to track and infrastructure needed for railway operation, and also the station and Inn itself. It would spoil that area completely and begin to look like a junk yard especially if bits of broken and wornout machinery etc are brought and almost dumped as a donation.
Blackmoor needs to be a welcoming gateway to Exmoor National Park, open, light, charming and practical with a museum perhaps for the L&B only and have the engine and carriage sheds needed for the operation of the railway.
I would agree that perhaps something could be done closer to Barnstaple, and not Chelfham or Yeo Valley, much closer to Barnstaple or within Barnstaple somewhere and perhaps include large industrial history displays of the area. This could include exhibitions of shipbuilding, lime kilns, farming, logging, fishing, Shapland and Petter and other prominent local companies, and also the RAF. If things like steam fair ground rides, mill machinery, plus even things like recreations of kilns, etc are looking to be brought together for a museum style attraction it needs space, the space to look right, feel right and be an attraction in its own right on that bygone industrial history of North Devon.

 

It may surprise DaveE to know that I agree with him - certainly with regard to the matter of not over-crowding Blackmoor, let alone become any sort of junk-yard for hopeless restoration cases.

In which context, I can recall a few years ago a suggestion that the Trust was resisting the idea of adding any more sidings (other than what was original at each station) than were absolutely necessary for operational purposes, so as to avoid any L&B examples of the sorts of places seen elsewhere where 'remote' locations are used to store 'vehicles awaiting restoration' which rust away there for so long that eventually they disappear into the undergrowth.

 

Like a turntable, you mean ?

 

I believe the correct response is "you may think that, but I could not possibly comment"

 

Those with long memories will recall what happened to part of Braunton Station when it was donated to the Association. (sic)

 

More developments in the saga concerning Anne Belsey (see Groups for details). The junta are demanding Anne withdraws from the election, which will make all the ballot papers sent out invalid - AGAIN!

 

And the reason is?

As Abraham Lincoln said Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt

 

Any chance of a summary? Or a direction to the groups?

 

All aboard the Skylark!

Or, as we used to say at Dartmouth when someone had made a complete horlicks of something, 'round again cox'n'

 

Too long to summarise. To find groups put groups.io into search engine. You’ll need to set up an account and then ask to join the L&B group.

 

I clearly joined the wrong one when I was deciding which of them to clutter up my inbox with and went for 'Modelling the L&B'

 

https://groups.io/g/Exmoor-NG

 

See https://groups.io/g/Exmoor-NG for where it's posted.

Summarising what is posted on Exmoor-NG, an investigation has been performed into a communication that Anne sent out in March and has found that, had she been an employee, she would have been guilty of gross misconduct. This has been a paper exercise by external HR consultants where the "interview" was notified to Anne at very short notice and with limited information to respond to, and that she chose not to engage on that basis.

She is being offered a "choice" by the Trust board between withdrawing her candidacy as a trustee and publicly retracting everything she's said about the Board, or having her membership of the trust removed and being refused permission to work on any property owned by L&BRT or CIC.

It is worth note that the ballot papers are in circulation and that votes may have been cast (4 candidates to be elected from 5 standing) that would have been cast differently had she not been a candidate. Two members of the trust board that took that decision are also candidates for election who were co-opted after the "AGM".

 

This is shameful. Here's what I wrote on Exmoor NG along with the consultant's "report" that has all of the problems @35B mentions. And that's before we get into the cost of the HR consultants and whether the co-opted Trustees who are running in the same election as Anne recused themselves from this process - if they didn't, then they should resign because of the conflict of interest.
_______________________________

I've had a quick read; some thoughts, apologies for the length.

Short version: please stay in, Anne, this is appalling, and I cannot see where in the disciplinary procedure the proposed punishment is even allowed - this
is more lawless behaviour disregarding our rules by Mr Miles and his friends for something that looks like straight retaliation because you happened to disagree with them. That's disgraceful.

Long version:

First, with the Trust making the decisions, this is emphatically not the independent process Mr Miles committed to in Lynton. If he had said "we'll
get our HR advisers to write a report and then the Trustees will decide" then I can't imagine that the room would have supported him: given that he and Mr Nicholson tried to rig the election by refusing to put Anne's valid nomination to us as members, the idea that an "independent" process would be decided by the Trustees is ridiculous.

Second, the Peninsular Report is laughably bad.

Anne is charged with three things:

1. Alleged "personal attacks" on the Trustees
2. Sending a document to members to encourage members funding to be passed to Exmoor associates and the Yeo Valley Trust rather the L&BRT, as to the detriment of L&BRT
3. GDPR breach

Let's look at each in turn.

1. Alleged "personal attacks" on the Trustees

The evidence that Peninsula refers to is Anne's email of 7 March 2023, in which she canvasses support for a vote of no-confidence (VoNC) in the Board.

Let's first be clear that as the L&BRT is a democratic organisation which allows VoNC, canvassing Members to gauge support for a VoNC is perfectly legitimate, and it is hard to argue that the Board's collective strategic failure in losing the Planning Permission is an unreasonable basis for a VoNC. By their nature, any VoNC will be highly critical - that's what the 'no confidence' bit is all about!

The report makes much of the phrase in Anne's note that

*'Integrity and respectfulness are necessary qualities for any Trustee, and we find these Trustees lacking in these qualities'*,

construing this as

*"amount[ing] to a personal attack on the Board"*.

This phrase appears in the draft VoNC that Anne was gauging support for amongst Members. As it is practically impossible to gauge support for a VoNC without the proposed wording, to penalise someone for doing so is to effectively remove the right of Members to use VoNCs to hold the Trustees accountable. Given that VoNCs are a legitimate part of our governance, this charge is nonsense.

2. Sending a document to members to encourage members funding to be passed to Exmoor associates and the Yeo Valley Trust rather the L&BRT, as to the detriment of L&BRT

Given that the last Magazine included a flyer soliciting funds for the purchase of the Beeches Light Railway's DHR B Class locomotive, this charge is farcical.

I like the DHR and their iconic B Class, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the L&B, so on this basis Tony Nicholson should also be being prosecuted by Mr Miles for advocating the diversion of funds from the L&B. Indeed, Mr Nicholson's case would be much more serious, as Anne was advocating keeping donations *in* the L&B family, not sending money elsewhere.

Unless and until Mr Nicholson is prosecuted for this, this charge is also nonsense.

3. *GDPR breach*

It is probable that Anne did inadvertently breach GDPR, with a reasonable defence of whistle-blowing. She should therefore face a punishment not greater than for the more serious breach by a leading member of the East Group. If I understand correctly, that individual did not face any action or any sanction.

So on the basis of consistency and fairness, Anne should not face any punishment at all - and yet we have Mr Miles and Co proposing draconian sanctions in the week before the election results that conveniently would force Anne off the Board if elected, having failed to rig the ballot in the first place.

This looks and feels like straight retaliation against someone whose real "crime" was disagreeing with Mr Miles.

That's disgraceful, and any Trustees who support this should be ashamed - this should be a resigning matter.

 

Oh dear. What a mess. Total change is probably the only way forward. Hard to make it happen though.

 

It could be achieved with enough of a concerted effort It may take three years though...

 

...assuming that yet more of us do not get kicked out first for daring to criticise the Board :-(