Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I would agree that setting up a new payment mandate under BACS is becoming an increasingly complicated and long-winded process. However, if you are doing it for an organisation to whom you may wish to donate again on subsequent occasions, then once done it is done and can be used with ease on future occasions. With respect to other posters, I do find it strange that a temporary one-off 'inconvenience' in the donation process is apparently bad enough to offset the benefits that the railway will gain if they persevere.

 

It all depends on just how much you want the project to succeed. I set up a payee once in my bank account, and have made 5 simple payments since then. It's all you need to do to buy more shares, no further documents.

It's true that you now have two stage authentification, but I am glad that they are doing this. I recently saw a crime programme about a murderer in the US who had put all his misdeeds into a Word document that he protected with a password. The FBI was eventually able to access the document by putting the password search into a computer programme that just whirred away and tried one password after another. Finally it got there. That made me sit up! Several of my payment options have just a password..... I have now added the second, text message, stage to them.

I think also some of us on here attribute too much sophistication to EA. It's not the Bluebell, or the SVR, with years of experience. It's just a bunch of guys who thought they'd do something to get back the trackbed. They can't do it personally, so they formed a company. Anyone can join, its a community funding. It will take many years, but they are steadily successful.

Here's another picture of the potential acquisition:


(Picture used with permission)

 

The EA have lost my donation as well. I was about to make an "impulse purchase" of a donation but the procedure put me off. Blame "Covid Lockdown Brain Fever" if you like but, given the choice of EA's system or yet another few quid to another railway with a simple system, the EA lost out.

Come on EA, something less 5% (or whatever) is better than 100% of nothing.

 

Right.
Well, in the light of some these replies, I've just been spurred into making a BACS payment tonight, faff or not, to help the shortfall. We need this trackbed.

 

Thank you, Mark

 

Well I did donate on the "Just Giving" BF purchase, then a bit more via cheque and now set up a BACS. The ease of "one click" has led into a greater involvement, so there are benefits for all the different methods.......but let's be pleased that progress towards a greater L&B "awakening" is being maintained.

 

Should this have a "pedestrian not included" warning ?

 

They do seem to be missing a trick by restricting the methods of contributing. But surely the biggest trick they are missing is not being a charity, or having an associated one, that can benefit from Gift Aid.

 

Oh dear, perhaps not the best attitude to take. Person A's ten quid isn't worth more than person B's ten quid, simply because Person A jumped through more hoops to donate it.

I realise there may be issues regarding donations to a limited company, but until something is worked out you are going to be restricting your income, and no amount of long-winded explanations, distractions, or shaming on an internet forum is going to change that. Think of all the people put off by the process who don't read this forum, whose spur-of-the-moment donations have been lost. It does depress me a bit that this conversation is even having to be had.

With the Bratton appeal, EA's modus operandi did seem to show up some of its limitations. While I can understand that having a closed management is of benefit given the sensitive nature of what EA are trying to do, it nonetheless can become counter-productive if it restricts your skill-base. I do feel that EA need to have a review of things, a point I seem to recall making on this thread before.

Anyway on a more positive note, I shall try and send some more pennies as soon as pay-day arrives.

 

Agreed. Speaking personally, for the right cause I would donate by BACS though removing barriers to donation is inherently a good thing.

But - for me, a donation is a donation. On the one hand, when making a donation I explicitly don’t want to then end up with shares. But I explicitly do want to see that the value of my donation has been maximised by recovery of Gift Aid. So not having a charitable option is a big disincentive for me, even though this is one railway project that in other ways I would really like to see succeed.

Others may have different motivations of course, which is fine. But for me I’d want to see the option to donate without buying shares and with recovery of Gift Aid.

Tom

 

Could they set up a charity, given that this is pretty much a pure property play? Is there not a risk that the Charity Commission / HMRC are going to say 'we're not going to help you, just so that you can buy land'? Or am I wrong there?

 

The National Trust is a land-owning charity so I am not sure what the barrier would be? If you are acquiring the land with the long-term purpose of re-instating a heritage railway as a heritage / educational experience, is it a problem if the freehold of the land of is owned by a charity?

In other words I don't see this as a pure property play; it is a long-term enabler of re-instating a heritage railway.

Tom

 

Purely as a guess, but I would suspect that the 'education benefit' to be gained from the land will in most cases accrue only when the ownership has transferred from EA to the L&BRT. In the meantime the EA may well be viewed simply as a 'property holding' body which provides no public benefit as such.

 

I don't know if this helps, but classing it as "Education" is no longer the only option (and I agree it's difficult to see how that fits), more recently "Heritage" has been defined as a purpose for a charity to exist.

 

Is there a reason why there is a separate organisation to do the land purchase? Why not do it as a ring-fenced fund within the L&BRT if they are in any case going to end up as the ultimate beneficiary?

Tom

 

Acquiring land (CC33) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Charity land and property - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Might be a start.

 

I read it slightly as a case of "we are where we are", as the L&B family has evolved strategies to achieve the seemingly impossible.

While I am always keen to make my donations in as tax efficient a way as possible, I do ultimately look at the cause rather than the method of giving. That means that I would consider giving to a cause set up as a limited company, even if I didn't want to become a shareholder, but would myself never be a fan of setting up in that way at the outset. The choice of BACS vs other ways of making donations is an interesting dilemma - my experience of church donation arrangements is that the costs of signing up with someone that can aggregate donations is often disproportionate if only occasional ad-hoc donations are expected.

My concern, given the endless discussions about the L&B's nearest preservation neighbour, hints of friction in the Loughborough area, and even occasional comments on L&B threads, is that bringing the linked organisations together will be more demanding than would be ideal, and may undermine the ultimate goals. I believe, as an outsider, that the risk of this is low, but the opportunity for friction does concern me.

 

I always understood that the reason for the 2 separate bodies was because the responsibility for land acquisition across the country entire 19.5 miles of the L&B would be too onerous a burden, bearing in mind that acquired land would also require upkeep, thus diluting available funds and labour.
The responsibility seems to be that the Trust are responsible for land from Blackmoor northwards, and EA fir anything south of there.
2 years ago EA transferred 2 parcels of land to Trust ownership, to enable reconstruction between Blackmoor and Wistlandpound to begin.
In the meantime, EA can maintain stewardship of their holdings south of there, and pursue new purchases without over-extending the Trusts liabilities in any way.
Whilst nothing is ever perfect, this arrangement seems to have worked very well up to now.

 

While everyone (here anyway) hopes that the aims of extending the L&B succeed I assume that EA have to show a certain amount of realism that it is possible that the plans for the entire length of the line might never succeed in which case the ability to be flexible in the disposal of unwanted property, also perhaps remnants not comprising actual trackbed acquired as part of larger parcels, needs to be borne in mind when considering charitable status.

 

Charity land and property - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

"It’s usually straightforward to sell or lease charity land and property - most charities don’t need Charity Commission approval. You must try to get the best deal for your charity and follow any rules in the law and your governing document."

Seriously chaps, I would check out the links I posted. It will save a lot of needless speculation.