Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

On Feb 6th, Devon History Society in association with Plymouth Historical Association is hosting a Zoom presentation by L&B General Manager Stuart Nelhams, entitled:
‘EXMOOR’S WORLD-FAMOUS NARROW-GAUGE RAILWAY’ – THE LYNTON AND BARNSTAPLE RAILWAY.

(See https://www.devonhistorysociety.org.uk/events/lynton-barnstaple-railway/ for booking details)

I don't know what Stuart will have to say, but any attempt to publicise the L&B in a positive light and to a wider audience should be encouraged and supported.

Might be worth joining in from the comfort of your own computer? £4 - or free for DHS/PHA members.

 

Nice to see the work that one of the drivers at my place is getting see by everyone .

Certainly makes for a more pleasant viewing seeing it in colour like it

 

So the war goes on. I see the special resolution for the sacking of Anne Belsey and Chris Duffell hear been published.

This really is a railway on a suicide mission.

 

I'd say the opposite really, the railway is trying to save itself by getting rid of two extremely difficult people.

Anne is clearly on some form of 1 man band mission to get the railway done for GDPR

And Chris, has actively been agaisnt any positive actions by the railway for a while and is currently upsetting local land owners while we try to get permission to extend.

I'm sure the normal ones on here who support the two of them will come along and tell us its illegal , its wrong, its trying to silence the people but if we're honest ... an outside company has done the trial agaisnt Anne and has found her guilty which is basically out of the hands on the trustees so there's no biasness there and if she didn't even turn up then clearly she knows she's in the wrong.

End of the day , the sooner them two are gone the quicker we can go back to actively trying to extend but all the while this is happening then more and more time and money is given to fighting these two than trying to agree with the councils for planning

I'm sure Mr tobbes will be along soon with 15 different emails that go on some rant about it all .

 

MMM an outside company which itself admitted that its parent company is doing work for the railway, whichever way you want to dress it up it is not an 'outside company'

 

Thanks for your insight - this has become a very difficult situation. Like you I am anticipating numerous posts supporting Belsey and Duffell. I have said it before and no doubt will say it again but some who post on here clearly have a vendetta against six of the trustees particularly Chris.

 

Interestingly at this EGM it seems a proposal will be made to change parts of the M and As so as to take away the power of members to propose trustees and the power that a members vote is the only way to remove Trustees. So basically if approved the Trust will have full control over everything and the members will have nothing apart from voting for the candidates approved by the board. The current Trust will become self perpetuating.

 

A company apparently so incompetent that they could not even get the name of the person who they were investigating correct! Nor did they appear to understand the law about GDPR, which should have rendered their conclusions unreliable. And their purpose AIUI was merely to analyse and report on the facts - it was the responsibility of the Trustees to decide on the basis of the report as to guilt or not.

>>>...And Chris, has actively been agaisnt any positive actions by the railway for a while and is currently upsetting local land owners while we try to get permission to extend.....

Funny that, recent media postings seemed to show some very positive actions on land clearance for the extension. And who was it that upset the residents of Parracombe and spent at least 3 years losing the permissions which already existed?

 

Are you referring to the work carried out by the working party over the last 3 days erecting fencing and cleaning up land beside the railway?

 

Work i believe Chris was barred from organising to get finished so that an 'issue' could be made of things including two admins of the 'unofficial FB page' of which i believe you are also an admin criticising the hedging work done yet by their own admittance of not knowing anything about hedging

 

Over recent days I have been mulling over the invitation to renew my membership that arrived with the latest magazine.

Nothing that I have read on the forum tonight inclines me towards renewing.

My contribution to the L&B is hardly a King's Ransom but there must be somewhere else that I can direct it that might actually help to achieve something.

 

No - the postings from about 2 weeks ago by what the GM described as a 'great team'.

 

Ah yes , that was a 3 days wasted , clearing up and fixing Chris duffnels work ...3 days could have been better spent doing stuff to get the railway ready for the public for another season

 

As i stated above, this has been used as an excuse to roll out the blame game and as i pointed out to your little buddy Tom, perhaps you should visit Chelfham seeing that you want to be in the blame game and see what a mess has been made as a result of the actions of a CIC director (not the one responsible for Chelfham) trying to save face in not losing more planning permission by sticking his oar in last September then dragging his heels until there was less than 6 weeks left from a 3 year planning approval to create utter chaos and turn Chelfham into a sh 1 t pit, but do we hear anything of his actions, ohh of course we don't because he is of the inner sanctum

 

If you are going to blame someone for something, then do at least try and give him the courtesy of getting his name right please....

 

So if your claiming that chelfham is a s*** pit from the actions of this director, then surely Chris' acts count as apocalyptic? Chris is an incredibly arrogant person, he only treats people with even the slightest shred of respect when they agree with his opinions. The amount of flack he has given the GM in inordinate, absolutely no respect or compassion. Before the debacle with the hedging Chris accused the GM of "not doing his job properly" if he didn't supply Chris with endless volunteers for trackbed clearance, it seems as though Chris then decided to throw his toys out the pram and made a mess for them to clear up, like a spoiled child would do. Previously he has arranged work to take place at cricket field lane, somehow the contractors ended up using the private driveway at heddon hall to access the worksite. When they complained to the railway about the mess caused by the big vehicles driving across what was effectively their garden, Chris tried to blame THEM and tried washed himself of any responsibility. Now the owners of HH are very anti the railway after considerable efforts by CIC individuals to "bring them on side". At the end of the day he is not only disrupting the work of the trust, but as the document says he is also causing mega trouble for the CIC.

The big trouble with all this internal conflict stuff is that the trouble makers can post whatever garbage they feel like with basically full support. If the trust tries to refute their claims, they get accused of being an "inner sanctum" with no tolerance for outsiders. But then if the trust don't say anything then the claims of the trouble makers go unchecked, and the trust are accused of "radio silence".

 

We have read enough facts on here to have a good idea of who are in the right and who are in the wrong. Sending out ballot papers with one name deliberately omitted, kangaroo court, etc.

 

Well, @Small Prairie , I wish I did have some answers to pertinent questions from the Board, such as

"Was Tony Nicholson correctly quoted in Trackside Magazine?"

and

"Even if the police didn't charge Mr Cowling with assaulting someone, "bringing the railway into disrepute" is a much lower bar, so where is the independent investigation?"

If we're in the process of hanging people for bringing the railway into disrepute, then Mr Nicholson and Mr Cowling have much more to answer than the one sided stuff in the document circulated today.

The real issue here is that the Board is dysfunctional because six people refuse to work with others elected by the Members. As @MellishR points out, "the six" never wanted Chris on the Board in the first place, and having chosen against Charity Commission advice to run an illegal AGM last May - after illegally refusing to allow Anne Belsey's name onto the ballot in the first place -- actions which @Small Prairie, @Thomas Woods and @H Cloutt seem perfectly comfortable with -- "the six" then refused to work with the others, and when Anne, Chris and Mike put together the Minority Report which was almost completely confirmed as accurate by the Trust, "the six" stopped having monthly meetings. And whereas Anne, Chris and Mike paid to email everyone, "the six" spent several thousand pounds of your money to produce a document that is peppered with demonstrable lies. Those were all pounds that could have been rather better spent, I'd suggest.

"The six" have now taken things to their logical conclusion: when the Members elect people "the six" don't like, the obvious answer is to kick Anne and Chris off the Board, and get the Members to decide that they should never again be allowed to decide who should be on the Board because "the six" will choose the candidates.

Some countries are run like this: Russia and Iran spring to mind. I'm glad I live in neither and have no desire for my railway to be governed like either of them.

Finally, even if you don't give a stuff about governance, and think that the L&BRT should become in name as well as in practice Peter Miles' Private Railway, then just remember that the public funding bodies who we will rely on to provide a pile of the cash for the extensions will want to see exemplary corporate governance so that they can have confidence that the public's money will be well spent. I know, because I've worked for such a body very recently. If I saw behaviour like "the six" have given us in the last 18 months, I wouldn't think twice about rejecting any and all applications, because there are none of the checks and balances requried to demonstrate that public money will be well - and accountably - spent.

 

If you class Chris as arrogant then i don't know what some of the '6' would be classed as, i have witnessed them treat members and the general public with absolutely disgusting behaviour , i have had members tell me of the arrogance towards them by the chairman on occasions at gala weekends, you say Chris upset the owners of HH yet Cenerty lane there has public access, some of the people of Parracombe were upset by the actions of the railway long before Chris was even a trustee, so much so we have all witnessed the hostilities as a result, what about the owners of 'Fairview'! Actions of the trust have turned them against the railway, you have made your feelings towards Anne and Chris very clear in the past and that you want no less than to see the back of them but if you want to criticise them make sure you have an understanding of the arrogance and actions of the others as well