Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Ah if she released it then I think that is fine and regardless of the confidentiality marked.

 

Oh dear, will the Trust now launch an investigation into the leak of a document allegedly by a member who was not even named (correctly) in it ?

Did anyone ever watch an American 'soap opera' comedy on the TV many years ago called IIRC just 'Soap'? If you did, you will see how this saga seems to be heading...

 

I remember Soap.

Confused? You will be.

 

A side issue for a sec, but I have only been to PR once and that was in the early years, it has all the charm of being the next big thing in heritage railways, yet it is almost like a sleeping giant awaiting its first coffee in the morning, it is a shame as I really think it has some great views to be explored.

 

@H Cloutt - it is clearly in the public interest to document further and continuing malpractice from Mr Miles and Co, so I can't see why anyone would have a problem with Anne publishing it after it was sent to her (complete with spelling mistakes).

Would you rather the Board's vendetta against Anne be hushed up?

 

In the meantime, I have been reminded that the CC have raised a case on the L&BRT.
Apparently the Case officer is Ava Dinn and the case number is C-084534, which should be quoted by anyone who wishes to write to the CC about the current problems.

 

Is it just me or why do I feel there may be more to come out and just how far back do we go to correct any past mistakes? Which have yet to come to the surface? I do get it that some of past decisions you simply can't go back and say sorry for.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing up to a point, but is it not time to try to change the group culture to reflect on the current issue and to be more proactive in preventing this happening again?

While some of us agree that the current M&A's may not be fit for purpose. I sometimes wonder what other issues all you guys have come across and for the benefit of anyone who is going to look at these M&A's at some point in the future what other issues need to be addressed now before they happen?

For me the first thing we need to address is just what is the legal role of the Trust in this organisation? Once this has been agreed, we can only at that point move on.

 

Any constitution needs to set out how an organisation is to be run to deliver on it's purposes. It will also be imperfect as what it needs to cover won't be known fully, so it will need to set out how issues will be dealt with. They therefore rely on goodwill to be successful.

The issue with the L&BRT is that goodwill is absent, and that (as with the elections of 2021 and 2023) the trustees appear to be acting as though they are above the M&As.

Changing the M&As is a distraction without fixing the behaviour issues.

 

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Agreed but perhaps the fundamental point to grasp is that the Trust is run by its Trustees not by its members. The core problem seems to be that there's a substantial body of them , it may even be a majority, that are unhappy with its direction of travel and the perceived lack of progress towards extending the railway. It may be that there are good reasons not to proceed as fast as the members might want, especially in the current economic environment. If so that would be a perfectly proper strategic decision for the Trustees to take.
New and different ideas should be welcome on any board but once a majority of the Trustees decide on something all of them have to support the majority decision even if they disagree with it. If they can't do so in all conscience they should resign. That's not just a consequence of the Articles but of a fundamental principle of effective corporate governance.
The members do have ways in which to force change ( but not, incidentally, by a vote of no confidence which the Trustees could, if they wished, safely ignore). Either the required percentage of members can call an EGM at which a resolution to remove Trustees, or to give them directions, could be tabled. The cost of printing. postage etc. would have to be born by those members. Even if a resolution giving directions to the Trustees is passed they would not have to comply with it if doing so would be contrary to the Articles or. in their reasonable judgment not in the best interests of the Charity. e.g . if the Trustees concluded reasonably that extending the line too soon posed an unacceptable financial risk to the Charity they would be right not to act as the members direct. Alternatively such resolutions could be tabled at a routine AGM if, again, the requisite percentage of members do so in due time but in that case the costs involved would be born by the Trust. However the same limitation on the nature of the directions that could be given would still apply.
Sometimes the behavior issues complained about may be because members have unrealistic expectations about democratic control and accountability.

 

There is no dispute that the trustees manage the organisation*. Nor is there any serious dispute about the desirability of extending the railway - that is categorically NOT the discussion at hand. There are significant issues about HOW that is to be achieved, where the “strategy” adopted recently does not clearly address how the known issues may be overcome.

On the other hand, there are issues over the way that the trust board has behaved towards members with different views, leading to the impression that they wish to avoid debate within the board - the charge against Anne Belsey is seemingly that it was beyond the pale for her to take soundings of a vote of no confidence. As has also been pointed out, there are also strong indications that the true status of the viability of the planning application was not fairly represented to supporters.

I also have some difficulty with the specific interpretation of collective responsibility that you assert. It appears to deny room for one or more trustees, accepting their legal position of being bound by decisions taken by the board as a board**, to push for material change in how the organisation is run.

* - I write here of the Trust. I note that there are a number of closely interconnected organisations with tightly overlapping memberships. I frequently disagree with @lynbarn on governance matters, but I believe he makes an important observation about the relationships between the Trust, CIC and 762 Club, and frequent resultant confusion over their roles.

** - it would be interesting to see the minute book for the board. I have heard it suggested that decisions “by the board” may not have been taken within the formal structures of the organisation; I believe that includes the decision to exclude Anne Belsey from the first run of the elections. Should that be the case, my understanding is that such decisions are entirely personal and not subject to collective responsibility.

 

Is the bit in bold opinion of how things should be, or what the law says, or specific to the way someone's worded documents at the L&B? Having been involved in a fight not dissimilar to this everything ran much more smoothly when the legal opinion came that in fact the organisation had to bear the costs, not those pushing for an EGM...

 

Yes it would be boring if we all agreed to the same things, I have no magic wand to make this project right and while 35B and myself may disagree on various points, at the end of the day I can take on board his and other members points of view if I think they can give a better result for this project. That said I don't have to agree with them, but coming to the best solution for this project is what it should be all about.

Everyone one of us comes from a different background either work wise or socially and we have all done things which worked at the time. For me the best Committees are those with people who can discuss the various view points, without throwing the baby out with the bath water. But also understand the way things need to be done to get the result required.

The way I understand it is that the Trust was set up with the membership having the final say over the direction that has been proposed by the Trustees. Most of the current Trustees have been in place if you like since we took over Woody Bay.

The membership or in our case the owners only get to agree to the direction of travel at each AGM. The recent AGM fiasco's provide just how much out of touch thing's have become.

Route one has always been to rebuild as much of the L&BR as is practicably as it is possible.

I feel that we need to call a halt for now and carry out a new fully costed feasibity report. Until we can get to grips of just what rebuilding this railway means, we shall continue to be clutching at straws in the wind.

For me it is just as important to understand how this project is to be managed, built and fully costed, after all I am only asking for the sort of information that say a donor would be asking for.

 

I think that one of the dangers of fully understanding and costing the whole project is that you might not like the answer. If you said the the whole project is around £100 million just for construction, this may put people off. The way to eat an elephant is in small bites.
Why £100 million? The borders rail project was around 8 million a mile in 2012. Halve that as it is 2' and with some volunteer input. 18 miles to build gives £72 million plus inflation, contingency, legal and certification costs.
Or go down the route of smaller, affordable sub projects with an overall eventual aim.
I suggest that it would be easier to sell on multiple levels the phased approach. As indeed a few voices said on here some years ago.

 

My recollection from the situation at the WSRA some years ago was that the members calling for an EGM had to bear the cost of printing any literature which they wanted distributed to the members over and above the actual Agenda - eg any 'flyers' setting out their case for reform. IIRC they also had to organise their own postage and distribution for the initial letters inviting support for their motion.

However, once the 'magic number' of members had supported the call for an EGM, then IIRC the actual cost of posting and distributing the basic EGM Agenda material had to be borne by the WSRA itself, which lead to the Trustees labouring the point that those seeking reform were 'costing the members money' etc. The reformers in turn tried to arrange the EGMs to coincide with other Association events (eg the AGM) so that only one mailshot was needed at one time anyway.

Part of the problem was that the date. time and place of the EGM was decided by the WSRA and not those calling for the EGM. Equally, the reformers had no control over what the Trustees did with the literature which submitted for distribution, to the extent that one batch of printing - costing about £1000 to those who had donated towards it - never actually reached the members at all, as the Trustees apparently simply sent it straight to the WPB and distributed their own (biased) precis instead. And of course, the process was such that the Trustees always had the 'last word' in what was sent out. In short, 'dirty tricks' abounded.....

 

Many years ago we had a guy from the Ffestiniog do such a costing and he worked it out at around £5million per mile so on that basis at the time it was around £100 million. Given that it did not take in to consideration what the L&BR Family has in total now, I think that is not far off of what it would cost today.

I would have to disagree with that advice about the small phased approach to this project, in my view you still need to work out what the estimated total cost for the project so you can save in the long run. There is no doubt in my mind that this has to be treaded as a major project for the area. The Taw Bridge was about £42 Million pounds in total and this project is more complcated than building a bridge across the river.

Just some of the planning can only be done once you own certain sections of the trackbed and that needs to be done in one application, but I would agree to the concept of spliting the southern part of the trackbed up into say four railway projects between Barnstaple and Blackmoor.

Looking at the accounts over the past few years you can add it all up and the Woody Bay Section with everything included has cost around £9 million already.

To just bring Blackmoor on line is not going to be cheap either, as we already have the possibility of a running line of up to 4 miles based on my figures we could be looking at around £40 million which would include the purchase of all the trackbed, the OSHI purchase and two new bridges south of Blackmoor that have already been rebuilt to date. This is about £3 million so far and an estimate £1 million for the under road bridge to link the line between ENP and NDC and that will be £4 million plus, new workshops buildings, planning, Rail, Sleepers, Ballast, S&T costs extra rolling stock, the list can go on.

As for volunteer labour yes I would include it, however this would be an unknow factor due to not having any idea of just how many volunteers we might have to carry out the work. there are those who would dismiss the use of volunteers anyway, but I would like to think that the various offers we have had over the last few years to help from other railways is still something to think about, my understanding is there is a bit of rivalry from the FR/WHR track gangs and the Guys based at the GCR, I was told that there are other railway PW teams that would come down for a weekend or two.

Of course there are those folk who will only work on building railways or canals and do not want to know about operating such projects, one of the biggest long term issues will be having enough volunteers to run the full project, but that is another story for another day.

 

Just remember the answer to the question of “how do you eat an elephant”…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Let's just hope we don't end up with a 'white' one.....

 

You might wish to familiarise yourself with s.172 of the Companies Act

 

Exactly - and 'don't bite off more than you can chew'. I think everybody knows that reinstatement of the whole line will be expensive and take years. Trackbed purchase as it becomes available is the right approach - Exmoor Associates seem to have this in hand.

 

Indeed, especially s172 (2) which confirms that for a charity like the L&B Trust its Trustees'/Directors duties are to further its public benefit charitable purposes instead of the interests of its members.