Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

So, if I've read that correctly, the L&B are supplying further information about various aspects of the plans, the updated info will then have to be sent to neighbours and statutory bodies, then a period for responses, then another period for the L&B to reply to those responses, maybe a further chance for neighbours to comment on L&B responses and then maybe, just maybe the ENP finally to make a decision.

The applications were entered in February of 2016, so we're approaching 2 years of deliberations and at this rate I don't think there'll be a decision even by the end of 2018. Sorry to sound so gloomy about a project that I would love to see succeed, but I can see this being caught up in legal red tape for many years to come.

Hopefully I can be proved wrong.


Keith

 

A more interesting question might be once the planning permission has been granted where is the money to start building?

 

There will no doubt be various fund raising efforts as used by many similar extension schemes up and down the land - just look at what has been achieved from say the Bluebell to the WHR and many others, yes it takes time and effort but is that not what railway preservation is all about.

 

If you study the development of the railway system in the 19th century, there was a clear "phase change" at which point railway projects could often receive authorisation for their plans but be unable to build them. I wonder at what point this is going to be repeated in railway preservation.

 

With the higher legislative hurdles costing so much to cross these days, one would hope that any such ill-considered unfulfillable ambitions went dodo-wise before substantial sums of supporters' hard earned cash got thrown at them.

 

While no doubt this could go on for years it should not be forgotten that there are other smaller projects going on which if they are done now will be ready when this is all sorted out locos and rolling stock to either build or restore various PW items to be sorted and got ready.

Don't forget we also need to purchase Blackmoor and then there is the possibility of buying or leasing more trackbed south of Blackmoor toward Bratton Fleming. So there is still a lot to do and various bits of the jigsaw still to be done.

 

The only problem with that is you will not stop people trying

 

Updated plans now on the ENP website
http://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov....ults?appNo=62/50/16/001&dotAppNo=62.50.16.001

 

Many thanks for the heads-up. This'll take a while to go through. A job for tonight, methinks.

 

On Rowley Barton GA, the road on the bridge section says 'rail level' when it should say 'road level' .. just checking..

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

Is it a problem? Whilst some schemes are untenable, others defy the odds. That's the reality of what's been achieved over the last six decades. When I grew up, the L&B was firmly in the "gone, dead and buried" category. Rather less so today, wouldn't you agree?

 

Deleted. I'm drunk!! See y'all tomorrow peeps!

 

Some responses already from expected quarters, apparently preemptive rather than reactive, looking at the dates and contents. Letter from D. Grob (ahem) interesting:
http://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/PAttachments//Applications Devon/Year 2016/Parracombe 62.50/62.50.16.001/62.50.16.001.N Neighbour response dated 2017.10.30 - Grob.pdf
This might well be a rehash of an earlier letter as a lot of it sounds familiar. However the closing statements couod be approaching borderline libellous, and it is the first time I have ever seen the term "misogynistic" used in planning correspondence...

 

I was expecting rather more than 2 pages. You know, I actually feel a bit cheated! Whilst Mrs G's point about 'pastiche' rather echoes several (dozens of) posts on NP concerning that very subject (which are in any event common to not only the heritage sector, but across the wider leisure industry), the rest of the missive is rather less convincing.

For the rest of it, I find my existing suspicion of one seeking to maintain a state of bucolic self-delusion, at the expense of the wider Exmoor community, is reinforced by the tone of comments suggestive of demonstrating little regard for any notion of either a healthy local economy or those neighbours of the appellant dependent on same for their very livelihood.

Inclusion of concerns financial is dangerous territory for the petitioner. Are we to understand that our individual and collective rights to deploy our resources lawfully, as we might see fit, should be circumscribed by any third party, short of national statute? Something of an "own goal" methinks!

As to matters of libel (no lawyer, me), I suspect any such will gleefully be jumped upon by legal practicioners with a keen sense of where their learned skillsets might best be productively deployed.

 

I wonder what the 'destruction of the heritage at Fairview' refers to? As I understand it from the L&B website and magazine, the house was purchased and then resold with the trackbed strip being excluded from the resale. What heritage does this destroy? It's actually reinstating the heritage of the house by returning its plot to the original size.


Keith

 

Mention is made of this in the latest tranche of revised planning documents. It seems the new owner of Fairview has been a little over enthusiastic in the work he has carried out at his new property. I don't know the details but it has caused a degree of "dismay" to the trust and is in the process of being rectified.

 

I am sorry Howard but I shall have to disagree with you in part. Gricers are notorious for "grotophilia" and sometimes lack imagination as how it must be for someone to live adjoining to a given heap of grot (er. railway heritage centre) The irony is that the L&B is very much less prone to grotophilia than many but is paying the price for the sins of others when faced with a determined opponent. Perhaps Mrs. G,'s "misogyny" is a part of "grotophilia".

Paul H

 

Erm... (?) Sounds like it may have been a heavy night on Hayling Island.
Are you familiar with the Grobs grievances in this process? Words like " pastiche" "disneyfication" etc. Are their thing. Grot has not yet entered their lexicon, and FFS don't give them any more silly ideas!

 

Whilst you (and indeed Mrs G) may raise a potential, though scarcely inevitable concern, this is more a matter of good management than an argument for inactivity. Confession time .... I'm one of those who could reasonably be called to answer a charge of "grotophilia", albeit I certainly don't expect the objects of my personal interests to be strewn willy-nilly across locations visible to the paying public or causing unreasonable offence to neighbours.

In the case of Parracombe, I'll re-examine info available on L&B and EA websites, but I'm reasonably certain I saw nowt about any intention to create a scrapyard at that location. There's an irony that this was the village which kicked off back when the original line was first mooted, resulting in railway facilities being confined to a halt.

 

They don't have to have any reasons where the L&B is concerned. I don't think they have. There are places where they would though and these may well be used as an excuse for NIMBY attitudes.

PH