Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I am not sure if it was a written agreement that EA/YVT would only undertake the purchase of the trackbed south of Wistlandpound. But I consider that this may be the wrong place to have drawn the line.

I know that we now have Blackmoor PLC, but I can't help but think we should have changed that line to the A39 bridge at Blackmoor so the Trust deals with ENPA while EA deals with NDC.

Blackmoor could then become the joint meeting point between the two parts of the Railway, which, in turn could generate some money to help in a small way to rebuild part of the railway.

 

From the Facebook page, Giles Perkins has said that the slides and a video of the meeting will be posted shortly. A good step!

If there's going to be an 'Appeal Yes/No' question, then in order to make an informed decision, I want to see:

- the grounds for appeal,
- the costs of the appeal
- an assessment of the likelihood of success, and
- a business case for the CFL project.

We've been here before with the successive red line and s73 fiascos which were both more than £100k and which delivered nothing other than opprobrium.

As it stands at the moment, I see no sensible grounds for appeal, and the business case was never been made clear - it seeemed to be 'longer railway good' which is not the basis for spending rather more than £1m that the Trust doesn't appear to have.

Time, as I said upthread, for everyone to stop, to get a neutrally chaired meeting of all of the L&B family, and to jointly produce the full array of options. The last thing we need is an ill-informed knee-jerk appeal.

 

I am not sure if this is something that comes under RM3 or not, but I found this YouTube which might help with safety clearance at a point on a railway

 

I don’t think this is a fair or appropriate question for Trustees to put to the membership. We are unable to have the kind of background information required to judge the merits or otherwise, and I would not expect the trustees to publish all they know for good reason. This feels like a shift of responsibility that I don’t find comfortable.

 

Latest news regarding the previous planning permission for the Blackmoor to Wistlandpound,

See >>> https://www.lynton-rail.co.uk/news/view/blackmoor-gate-planning

 

Giles did say they will be "working up" the options so far identified, before presenting to the members, and that we have 6 months (from the planning decision) to appeal. Personally, I'm minded to vote "No" - there don't appear to be any conclusive grounds for an appeal, and unless we can fundamentally change our plan, the same reasons for refusal will apply. (Read the disclaimer in my signature)

 

I think your approach is right, @Old Kent Biker . The real issue is that an appeal has to be based on substantive errors in the Planners' report or unsupportable decisions by the Committee.

Neither apply.

CFL as proposed was a new, never before existing, station, on a new, never before existing, embankment, with (at best) contested road access - who actually owns Cricket Field Lane (the road) is not clear*, and so failed on visual impact and on heritage aspects, especially given the lack of obvious offsetting public benefit.

A successful appeal against that backdrop seems far-fetched, to say the least.

With extensions from Woody Bay fanciful at this point - there's no land owned from WB to Caffyns (the Dean Steep section is beyond that, and on the other side of the A39), and there's no point in applying to go to Parracombe which is very likely to be rejected. If I lived in Parracombe (or especially Churchtown), I'd be concerned about more traffic on a very narrow lane, too. So Parracombe will reopen, but only as a through Halt in the form it was when the rest of the line opens between BG and KL.

*I thought it was the Church of England, but some local landowners think it is theirs - it certainly doesn't belong to any bit of the L&B family

 

Thinking about all of this, I feel we should wake up and smell the coffee and make getting rid of all the debt hanging over the project the next thing to clear

 

That's a tough ask in fundraising terms.

"Give us some money to buy this strategic bit of land that brings ever closer the day we can reopen theL&B" - people will respond to that with cash.

"Give us some money so we can pay off the mortgage on a bit of land we already own" - not so likely.

Tom

 

Yes, it will certainly be a challenge and one to think about. I think it will be the way you phrase the question that will be important.

Of course, it will be a problem if (and I hope it doesn't) fail as a pub/restaurant, since it will mean having to buy it all over again.

I don't want to sound negative about this, but buying a pub with so many closing at the moment is going to be a hard ask to undertake

 

The L&B is going to have increasing struggles with fundraising, I fear.
At #14902,Toby refers to each of the more recent planning failures having cost iro £100,000, and I've no doubt this is close to the mark.
At #14877, Meatman mentions the trust having approx 2100 members, and I have no reason to doubt this.

So those abortive planning adventures have cost roughly £100 per member.
The pub purchase exploit has put the trust in the hole for what? £400 or £500 per member?
I know the trust members are not personally liable for that money, and nat-west aren't going to send the boys round to collect, but the L&B, and everyone's hopes for the future are on the line. Failure of the pub, a common enough event, would be financially catastrophic, possibly fatal.

If the formation averages 1 chain wide, thats 8 acres per mile, with decent agri land selling for around £10,000/acre, that's easily 2 miles of trackbed purchase thrown away, or a quarter of a Manning-Wardle, or 16,000 hours at the minimum wage.
If someone comes asking for money a second time, it is reasonable to ask "what happened to the last £50 I gave you?"

 

As I understand it the LBBC (pub) is a subsidiary of the LBRT and when the deal was done the pub had its own footprint and the Trust purchased the land that would take the new track bed alignment and booking office building so even if the pub failed and ended up in different hands the land needed for the railway was owned by the Trust, only a few people know the exact financial situation and tie up between Trust and Company so at a guess worst case scenario that the pub did fail would be that any monies invested in the shares purchased would be lost but it would be the LBBC that would be the written off company and as such shouldn't affect the Trust or the land needed for the railway. I'm definitely no expert in what would actually happen and I'm sure there are people here who could explain the process better but as I understand it any debt incurred by the LBBC should not be the responsibility of the LBRT

 

Well, yes, but even the greatest copywriter in the world will still find it an uphill task.

Experience elsewhere is that people don't donate for things already purchased. If a prime opportunity to purchase something of strategic value to the project arose, you could launch an appeal and people would give you the money. But if the vendor wanted a quick sale, so you used your general funds or a loan to buy it and then launched an appeal to replenish your funds - much much harder. Rightly or wrongly, people like to be enthused that what they are donating for is pushing the project forward, and "rebuilding finances" doesn't have the same wow factor as "buying the next strategic parcel of land".

Repaying debts just magnifies the problem: people can be very judgemental, and the natural response to an organisation trying to raise money to pay off a loan is often "well, you shouldn't have got into debt in the first place". In reality there may be very sound reasons to take out a loan (for example, to conclude a rapid sale at an advantageous price) but people rarely see things that way, instead perceiving it as throwing good money after bad.

Tom

 

Both of you are correct, as I see it, the trust has dug itself into a fundraising hole which is going to be very difficult to get out of. I am not aware of the overall funding strategy for the trust at present, even though I have contacted the fundraiser to find out what it is. As you said, Tom, any savvy member is going to think twice about investing any money at present in the Trust due to the knowledge of the debt from the Pub.

Even if a fundraising drive were launched today to buy all the trackbed North of Woody Bay to Lynton, I feel it would struggle or, at worst, fail completely. The reason I say that is there is very little confidence in the trust to deliver the results the membership are seeking right now.

I heard that the number of votes cast at the AGM was around 25% of the membership total of just over 2000 members. I also heard that some worthy green shoots are coming through, and I do hope that things have not been left too long to be able to turn it around.

I have spoken here before about how I have always known that this is going to be an expensive project to complete, and the trust needs to look at the way it carries out its fundraising. I am still convinced that it is doable, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and disappointment along the way to get there. It is all about having confidence in those leading the project, if you don't have that, then it will just sink. I have in my head those famous words by Roger Daltrey in We Wont Get Fooled Again Meet the new boss Same as the old boss..............

 

To be fair, many may not have voted this year as it was uncontested.

 

I’d say 25% of members voting is a remarkably high level of engagement, not low!

Tom

 

Quite agree, as with many charity memberships a proportion are those who have joined as they like to "do their bit", especially those who join after a visit to Woody Bay as perhaps a tourist, but are not necessarily interested in the business side of things behind the scenes, they just enjoy the magazine and updates when they arrive and the rest goes in the bin.

 

That seems about right from my figures. What concerns me more, though, is that when you and I were both assistant membership secretaries, some 20-odd years ago, the total membership on our spreadsheet was around 2,800. In recent years, a figure of "over 3000" was oft quoted.

At the AGM, Giles mentioned a current figure of around 2,100, with the caveat that the exact number of eligible voters depends on the different membership categories (joint, family, etc). I would like to see a membership recruitment and retention programme, with a target of up to 5,000 members. It can be done, but will require a concerted effort by many of us. Giles did also mention that they will be looking at the member offer, to see if it can be improved to encourage participation.

In the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway, we have a potentially great product, we just have to share it with many more people, including those who may have lost their earlier enthusiasm for what we are trying to do!

 

As an aside, it would also be interesting to compare that change to assess trends and causes. It would be very easy to make glib conclusions (I’ve my own opinions!), but some data would be useful to inform decisions about what might work, and why.

For contrast, I recently received something from the Bluebell referring to, from memory, 9134 members. It’s not that long ago that I was reading of exceeding 10,000.