Teifi Valley Railway

To confirm we bought over 9 miles of former trackbed to a point near Pencader, please see the attached map showing the actual track of the railway near Pencader . The junction is outside the actual village and the TVR was allowed to buy trackbed up to a few yards above that.
Maybe TVR Volunteer can appreciate that the railway's setup has not always been the same as it is now. For example, the directors used to send in annual Accounts ...

 

The sale of the trackbed at and near the former Llandysul station for the Llandysul bypass road has not been mentioned. I am uncertain of the date but it was probably about 20 years ago.

 

It was a compulsory purchase to enable the construction of the Llandysul bypass. Tricky situation as it involved a short isolated section of cutting crossed by 2 aged road bridges for whose maintenance we were responsible. So we were not going to be devastated to lose it, but we were able to negotiate because of the LRO. We were able to remove a large quantity of Victorian platform tiles for use at Henllan and could watch the 2 new road bridges being built, while being compensated by £15k.

 

The mystery of why there are no Accounts giving information on how the TVR and its cafe are doing has been solved. Mrs Cox has found a way to get out of it, as shown by a memo to me from Companies House. Both Companies should be closed down, but have lined up someone owed money to object to the closure. The objection means the Company can't be closed.
The TVR last sent in Accounts in March 2022 - these were for 2020. The cafe last sent in Accounts in 2019 and these were for 2017.
Is it laziness or paranoia or just nobody can be bothered?

 

Companies House apparently paralysed

 

Worth a read

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog...might-raise-at-least-6-billion-of-tax-a-year/

 

Has the cafe still been trading? This year?

 

Frightening stuff ! Hardly surprising the government is running short of money !

 

So if struck off the assets pass to the Government

 

https://ratings.food.gov.uk/business/863945/the-busy-bee-cafe-limited-henllan
I understand that the cafe is still trading, but room for improvement judging by this.

 

Every food standard rating I have ever seen in a window was either 5, or maybe 4.

Nobody posts a 1,2 or3....

 

You can get a zero rating! I suspect in that case the food would come with a free bottle of Imodium though...

 

I possibly ate in a place like that:



The back kitchen of a restaurant we ate in on the JingPeng pass.
I'm not complaining, it was nice, I just don't know what I ate, as it is the practice to order for the group, so you just tuck in!

 

You just need to be creative where you put it. See where they put the gruaniad's 2-star rating on this poster...

 

Low ratings do have a habit of being found out, though - a local cafe (not a greasy spoon!) that acquired a Zero rating was all over the local rag in no time at all.

 

Rather more important than the rating is that the same device is being used re the Teifi Valley Railway Ltd. This is not how a statutory authority should behave, dodging its responsibilities to the public. It took months of hard work for the group to obtain the Light Railway Order, guided by Major Olver of the Inspectorate, and we never forgot to take our obligations seriously. Distressing to watch. Note that it seems the TVR is no longer a member of the HRA.

 

I was recalling the creation of the railway back in the 1970s. Things were very different then.
Yes, things went badly wrong after the millenium and we now have the benefit of the book describing what happened by the man who orchestrated it all, Raymond Sanderson. His aim was that the businessman Dearing should takeover the Company and then decide whether or not to continue running a railway, doing away with all that not for profit social enterprise nonsense, selling off the yard for development etc.etc. Dearing was however scared off by a solicitor's letter and Sanderson isolated himself so that he could not be questioned.
The lease was wrong, but it seemed to offer hope at a time when everything was deteriorating rapidly. The Responsible Person had refused to do any work on the track and increased his consumption of liquids. The Company was protected by a contract but that turned out to be meaningless. The Board was reduced to 3. Sanderson bypassed the 2 other directors and took over a rival group, the Society management committee, which he manipulated to support Dearing and sack me from all posts at the railway. Nevertheless I persevered and the threat of total closure faded.
The present situation is not an inevitable consequence of the decision to sign the lease. The character of those who took over could be very different.