Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I know very little about this railway other than what I read on here, which I must admit does little to make me want to visit let alone join.
Over the weekend when the BBC ran the piece about the symptoms of Havana Syndrome
"dizziness, headaches, difficulty concentrating and an intense and painful sound in their ears".
I did wonder if maybe the wrong place had been chosen for its naming.

 

Despite what you may read on here, Woody Bay and Chelfham are both delightful places to visit, and you will get a warm welcome from all the staff and volunteers. As for a new syndrome, how about "L&B Trustitis"?

 

We will have 4 new trustees, but they could be 4 old-school, 4 new-blood, or any combination. We don't know yet who has been brave enough to put themselves forward yet, let alone who to support. I do agree though that a new secretary would be a breath of fresh air, and release Tony to concentrate on magazine editing and production.

 

It's called democracy - the sound of the members expressing their dismay at the actions and behaviour of the Board

 

Democracy, The Chairman won't like that

 

Hi all, long time lurker on this thread.

My thoughts on the recent saga:

I will start off by saying that the board of trustees did do a good job helping out the railway’s long term future such as overseeing the building of all the heritage carriages, the new build replicas of Lyd and Lyn, buying up former RoW and building the tea house at WB.. Unfortunately, it appears as if they have lost their way over the past few years and, like @Miff has said, the three motions passed at this previous EGM symbolize a complete loss of confidence in the Board’s ability to move the railway forward.

However, I fear that we have yet to hit rock bottom, though I hope I am wrong.

 

I do believe at one point, we will see this railway extend beyond its current operation; whether it’s within the next 10 years, 20 years, etc., I don’t know. I have a lot of faith in this railway, as I came stumbled upon it while travelling in the UK and was completely charmed by it to the point that it revived my previous hobby in railroading.

 

I see often that it is said that the Trust (and in many ways others including anyone involved with the planning or construction and design in the L&B) is to blame for the problems with the planning, and that they made bad decisions, and generally made a mess of it all.

It is totally understandable that people will look for a singular cause or entity to direct frustrations and anger and unfortunately the Trust are in direct line with many other factors hidden in the background. I'm frustrated at it all too, but not at anyone in particular, just the process as a whole along with the coming of Brexit and the pandemic, two of the biggest events in our country for many many decades.

In truth, a number of factors are involved which makes it quite complex with the Trust pretty much caught in the middle and in many ways the ENPA too with what is the largest planning application they have ever had to handle by a long long way.

I created this timeline last year and it's sat idle on my PC for ages, I have quickly updated it tonight on a couple of points and made a couple of corrections chronologically.

As you read this document remember that trustees try to gain as much info to make decisions. The mountain of consultations that the trust have had over time is immense with a barrage of information and advice to contend with, not just during the application process but before hand too from various organisations and authorities such as the Big Lotteries and the grant funded consultation to find the best way forward. Also remember the planning application ran to some 1800 A4 pages, a phenomenal amount of paperwork to check, double check and even just read, not just by us, but by the ENPA too...has anyone outside of the planning process actually read it all?

The timeline is reconstructed from publically available information, including... posts on the archive L&B website and notifications, various professional planning blogs, referenced case law etc, and for the pandemic just general dates from the news which can be easily checked, links are provided for the case law and blogs.

If anyone spots a mistake please tell me and give sources and I will correct after cross referencing.

Points to note in no particular order..

• It was estimated that between 20 and 30% of S73 applications were wiped out after the hearing of Finney vs Welsh Ministers in Nov 2019 after a complete turn around by the courts.
• It took the NDDC just under 4 months to approve the BG to WLP section, ENPA took over 2 years for the BG to KL section.
• The L&B was practically in survival mode for 18 months to 2 years following Jan 2020.
• Alongside this many authority offices were closed or working from home and the service of many authorities was very far from satisfactory. (My father's driving license in the end was well over a year over due for his 3 year medical renewal)
• The guidance introduced in 2016 for planning contradicted the statutes, with two complete turn arounds in case law for S73 objective amendments (Finney) and the finding on minor material amendments (which are not defined in the statutes), and so for me poses questions on how many S73 applications were refused when they shouldn't have been (Armstrong).

A nightmare.

 

Thank you. I had missed that.
In my experience Chairmen are usually elected by the members as they represent the whole organisation. However this is obviously not so in this case. Something else to be considered when revising the M & As !

 

I think it's fairly standard for the trustees to elect the chairman from within their ranks, in the same way that they dish out other roles - the membership gets to appoint people to the board but they can't dictate what their portfolio is. It could get messy otherwise - in could lead to a case where a chairman was voted in by a majority of members but not have the confidence of the rest of the board, which would arguably be even more dysfunctional than it is now where at least the majority of the board presumably still have enough confidence in the chairman to carry on. Having a 'minority' trustee(s) is one thing, and can be managed well or not, but having that minority in the chair is a recipe for disaster every which way I can think of.

 

Don't forget in the case of the L&B it's a company, and usually the board elects the chair.

 

I can well imagine Mike Whiteaker's feelings after the trauma of having felt obliged to step in and chair the dismissal resolutions at the EGM; and knowing he would inherit the various unanswered complaints from the floor as to flaws in the procedures which had been committed and not even acknowledged by the erstwhile Chairman. The burden on Mike's shoulders, having been lumbered, must have been almost intolerable for him as witnessed by the audience, with the responsibility it represented as to what to do to get us out of the mess. And he dealt with it with aplomb. No thanks to Mr Miles, who frankly cannot be forgiven for his lack of leadership. Mike must have wondered what he had done to deserve it. And when the two Trustees were dismissed leaving him in a minority of one on the Board he might well have considered resigning, but thank goodness he did not. We have to feel blessed (to use Mike Bayly's phrase) that there are still people in the membership who stand up to be counted, as evidenced from the postings here. With the temptation to give up and walk away very strong we have to hope for a satisfactory outcome at the AGM, because it is make or break time for this Railway. If there is not a reason to hope we shall be back to the 60s when the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Society threw in the towel and gave up. In my opinion it is that serious. A look at last year's accounts shows (p9, 10 and 26) how much the Trust relies on donations for survival. Donations and legacies in 2022 were nearly £600,000. As a former Chartered Accountant, I find Charity Accounts unintelligible, so I have summarised the 2022 figures on one page in an attempt to bring this home. If there will be evidence in the 2023 accounts about to be published of this substantial income falling away it will be the slippery slope that might suggest a terminal decline. This organisation cannot survive the loss of confidence in the Board of Trustees. It might eventually be revived as has happened at Llangollen, but I hope not to see it fail, because in the context of a small narrow gauge railway in a fairly inaccessible part of the country it might never happen. It is therefore essential, in my opinion that there is a determination to change the direction this body is going in, and the AGM is the next opportunity. I dont think I am being dramatically alarmist in saying: 'doing nothing is in danger of seeing all that been achieved destroyed.'

 

I do agree that there are some other factors involved as to why we are where we are, but you are giving the Trustees way too much slack.

They couldn’t even be bothered to write a statement about losing planning permission until a few weeks after they lost planning permission. They’ve alienated the locals and long-time supporters/donors.

and no need to dredge up the EGM; The end result is that they have essentially taken a sledgehammer to the railway’s long term future.

Do you really believe that even after all of this, The 6 trustees who have led the board for 10+ years are still capable of moving the railway forward?

 

I've posted a timeline, after quite a bit of research, and my view is, not all can be blamed on any one entity or set of people. My sole focus is on the planning process and the circumstances surrounding it.

There is no sledgehammer, but a series of smaller hammers from various angles, many of which are outside of the L&B, which have brought us to where we are.

As I have said before, trustee tenure is irrelevant, the M&As allow any Trustee to restand at any time they are due for re-election on rotation.

We will see who is on the ballot paper in due course and then see where we go from there and who the membership votes for.

 

Thank you for a comprehensive account of the events with the Planning Applications within the ENPA area. As I think some of us know it is a lot more complex than others believe.

 

Thank you for that, it’s useful to have all of that information about the planning process gathered in one place.

However, I’m left with a question - given those conditions and the decision not to appeal them, what did the Trust do to drive through the ability to progress?

More specifically, why did the Trust not follow the approach of the RVR and, in parallel, seek a TWAO with compulsory purchase provisions?

Given those conditions, which might equally well have been required by ENPA under the current legislative regime, I’m left wondering where the plan was to deliver on that requirement back in 2018.


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I fear you confuse relevance with legality. Not everything that is legal is right; the concerns that I and others have about tenure are not about the legal position, but about whether a board should be comprised of members who have collectively spent so long in post.

As you then say, much then depends on who stand, what the members think of those candidates, and how we then vote.

If we vote for “new” candidates, I then want confidence that the existing board members will treat them with the respect due to their offices, and that we won’t see a repeat of the behaviours of the last couple of years towards “outsiders”.


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I would like to have confidence that any 'new' candidates will try to work with the existing trustees.

 

I think it was the Bluebell that found themselves in a similar situation some years ago where they had a planning approval but couldn't actually use it and the only thing they could do was let the application lapse and then reapply with an amended application.

The danger in challenging (and especially before Oct 2018) is the possibility of a refusal, which is then a black mark for future applications.

Initially I think we all felt that although we had an approval, but it was dead in the water due to those conditions and we couldn't do a damn thing about it.

There is also the danger of severely upsetting and making relations very difficult with the planning authority if you appeal, something that will cost them a lot of money and also in light of the fact that we will be needing to use them many times in the future. We need them on our side.

The acquisition of further trackbed, Parracombe Halt especially, tipped the balance on opinion on whether it would be worth seeking a variation of conditions, the S73.

Unfortunately as we submitted our S73, there was great uncertainty about certain parts of the S73 legislation and guidance which didn't help us one little bit plus we were still in the pandemic with many offices and authorities still struggling with staffing etc due to illness, furlough etc.

In the case of RVR, it's mainline, more "sexy", attracts a huge amount of more money and big hitting benefactors. They have been working on their TWAO now for many many years, which has cost a huge amount and now encompasses a mountain of paperwork plus the time involved. For them, it was deemed the right time to apply, not yet for us I doubt, we need much more. A TWAO, and especially with purchasing powers, is not a simple walk in the park. Quite simply in my view 2 reasons we didn't go for it, cost, and chances of actually obtaining a TWAO, for now, is quite low. We need those chances to be at their maximum.

 

Of course. But I don’t believe that either Chris or Anne did other than to try to work with them - whereas we have the as far as I’m aware undisputed account of one trustee refusing to work with Anne, and being effectively backed in that position by the chair.

In those circumstances, I trust you’ll forgive me for putting the onus on the existing board members to welcome and induct any new colleagues.


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