Bala lake Railway.

I see this as an attempt by the Planners trying to get the railway to come up with the solution to the issues

 

Given the high quality of the BLR’s submission and the extensive upfront stakeholder liaison I’d be annoyed to say the least with the planning officer’s assessment. The Nat Park Board in its public statement put the responsibility on to the applicant by claiming that it was ‘impossible’ for it to do anything other than refuse the application. It did make some mildly supportive noises too but it’s the classic quango tactic of kicking the can down the road by asking for ‘more information’. Having some experience of the planning system through my work, it seems to me that the BLR is facing a number of bureaucratic obstacles. Not impossible to overcome but expensive and time consuming…

 

Hmmm, when I read the papers looking for some insight into what had happened, I was less convinced that the BLR's case was as clear cut as all that.

 

All the items are fairly important, though items #2 to #6 are all only a question of submitting more information demonstrating the mitigation.

Item 1 is the difficult one. There seems to be no accepted method for achieving this assessment at the moment which is why 3000+ planning applications are stuck in the system.

item 7 seems really odd to me. Did Dwr Cymru not recently rebuild some of their assets in order to create a space for the railway? Was the railway a contributor to that? Don’t understand that one at all.

 

That was Natural Resources Wales maintaining flood defences, not Dwr Cymru. The railway paid for the additional works required to fit the trackbed along the flood defences as it made sense to do it at the same time.

 

Thanks for clarifying.

 

Having skim read many of the planning documents I would probably agree that the application was a detailed and probably thorough submission but with statements that I think personally should have been better evidenced and which is why the authority had stated they needed more information. I would not agree that said authority were looking for reasons to refuse it; rather they could not find reasons to approve it (without breaking their own guidelines or creating a precedent for other applications to follow) Yes, the railway could have provided this additional information but it may have needed time or indeed revisions to their design.

To provide some examples;

a) the application provided an assessment of decibels for current and projected noise levels and concluded that no or little impact would result from noise to neighbouring property and thus there was no requirement for any noise mitigation ( for that read things like acoustic barriers or landscape planting) They also stated that there would be no additional vibration and thus proposed no further action on this. Anecdotally even I would find it difficult to argue that there would be no impact from noise; at the very least a shrill of a whistle would be heard over the background noise occasionally wouldn’t it? Evidence is limited but surveys could be carried out to prove this one way or the other.
b) the application has acknowledged that the demolition of the centuries old building by the bridge would have a detrimental impact upon its environs but contest that the benefits of the scheme outweigh this loss. Now the government have used this argument when approving HS2 so it does hold water so to speak! But there are other examples where it has failed eg new road tunnel near to Stonehenge. It gets a lot of authorities such as Cadw upset so if you are going to make statements like this you need to provide justification beyond reasonable doubt that your position is indeed correct. Simple statements cannot be relied upon on their own which appears to have occurred in this case.
c) the highways dept are concerned at the difficulties of large vehicles entering the road where the station is to be built. As this is the road connecting to the car park this issue already exists but could get worse eg more coaches turning up to deposit prospective passengers as part of organised tours. The railway have tried to mitigate this but as the highways dept have stated, the railway will not be in control of who actually comes and so who gets the blames if the traffic build up on the main road because a vehicle has got stuck? The simple response would be to provide tracking diagrams demonstrating that problems would not occur but I suspect there are issues and in reality adjustments to the road network may be required. (Or even a new separate entrance but this requires a modified design).

There are many other examples but all taken together I personally would not view these as a major problem; all of the contested issues I think can be resolved over time and with money but alas that in itself may be a major problem. Hopefully given the positive comments from many of the organisations stating that in principal they are for the scheme the railway will find a way to achieve their goal.

 

Announced that Britomart from the Ffestiniog Railway will be visiting over the August Bank Holiday gala, bringing a total of 6 Quarry Hunslets in steam.

 

A couple of tantilising views of the trackbed looking towards Bala town station from this weekend.

 

WE called in tat Bala tje other week to find the Alice weekend ion full swing. Great to see full trians and I don't know what the marketing of the raiwlaty is, but the diversity of the passgengrs was fantastic to see.

 

I've very much noticed that whilst firing there. It's extremely heart warming and the constantly improving passenger figures show it's working - even in a market that many railways are finding challenging.

 

Some further news. It seems as thought there is to be an investment in the water treatment centre. Details on the Trust's Facebook Page.

https://www.facebook.com/1000668002...bRke3kv4ir7Xm6ncq5imbGhcFLMv8aVF4vi8inHAKfTl/

 

Despite indifferent weather, everyone seemed to be having a great time when we passed by on Sunday. It's a fantastic little railway and I hope they manage to get the extension sorted. I've always found the BLR extremely friendly.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

 

Tim on the job there

 

Pleased to see there may be a way forward for the waste water issue.

https://www.facebook.com/100066800281722/posts/794188502817819/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

 

I have suggested to a couple of drivers that, with the new observation coach next to the engine, we could look as thought we were having an argument on the move followed by a wrestling match on the footplate in full view of the passengers! Reaction would be interesting...

 

don't fall off, though !

 

I see from Facebook that Statfold Barn have donated their four ex-Lynbarn/L & B carriages to the Bala Lake, to provide extra carriages for when the extension opens.

 

From a couple of days ago, just after unloading was completed.

 

The new planning application is now open for comments.
https://planning.agileapplications....So_KUbW8h5Xj1Nvnotj2K1QTy-50Nmg0s9lzhHrHD5n0E

Perhaps you might like to consider a message of support for the application.