Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

And, from the same "this is a dead duck" perspective, it is hard to see how the SR not having the right to close the railway could somehow cause the trackbed to revert to the previous L&B company.

As for the conspiracy theory about the rapid closure, I'd just suggest that the SR were typically efficient about managing their affairs, and winding the L&B down efficiently.

 

To be honest, it sounds a bit like an expedition to Brazil to find the missing MW.

 

...but possibly not with the attendant risks

 

Thank you. What do you think the reason was for excluding the L&B from the grouping was? Were perhaps negotiations with the LSWR well underway?

 

...

 

The suggestion that the SR could not close the L & B came in an anonymous telephone call to the clerk of Lynton Council a few days before the last train was to run. He or she pointed out that the Clause in the 1895 Act (No 7) which Col Lake had settled for (rather than the agreement scheduled to the Act) which said that 'the Company shall construct and for ever efficiently maintain near Martinhoe Cross in either of enclosures numbered 16 or numbered 17 on the deposited plans' a station . . . to be called Woody Bay, which he changed to Wooda Bay. The Council members voted down a plan to take legal action.

 

I'm reassured that I haven't dreamed all this!

 

@Jamessquared , @lynbarn and @Meatman have covered the history pretty well. From my conversations, the real breakdown in trust occurred when Peter Miles tried to take over EA/YVT with some very dubious legal tactics which, when they failed, Mr Miles lied about it. This was back in summer 2010, when Trackbed Trails 9 reported thus:

"Meeting with the L&B Trustees

Like yourselves we received two letters from the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Trust about changes they would like to make to Exmoor Associates, the second of which enclosing a voting slip to be returned to their accountant.

Contained within the letters it clearly stated that they had not only taken legal advice but had confirmation from the charity commission that everything they were proposing was correct and legal.

Concerns were expressed by several shareholders that in fact this was not the case and they doubted the validity of what was being proposed and that we should seek legal advice on this.

We always endeavour to keep any costs to a minimum but on this occasion felt we had no choice but to take advice, therefore we used the same solicitor, Justin Oakley who set up Exmoor Associates. He soon confirmed that what was being proposed by the Railway Trust was not valid and he pointed this out to the Trust after the first letter had been received also asking for the name of their legal advisor, however this was not forthcoming.

The second letter appeared with the voting slip, once again Justin responded to them telling them what they were proposing was invalid, and once again asking for contact details of their legal advisor, and once again it was not forthcoming.

Justin on both occasions did tell them how they could properly go forward but they chose to ignore it. Mike Buse also asked the L&B company secretary, Tony Nicholson, if he could confirm who was giving them legal advice - he said it was of no concern of Mike’s and the answer was no.

As you are all aware, the trustees of the L&B attempted to call an extraordinary general meeting of Exmoor Associates straight after the railway AGM and in the event an unofficial and informal meeting did take place.

When asked who their legal adviser was, Peter Miles jovially said, “well no one of course.”

So finally we have the answer we had been looking for, that Peter Miles and the Trustees lied to us all thinking we would be bullied into making invalid and unworkable decisions. Let us hope this is not to be a regular occurrence.

Finally Exmoor Associates have been left to pick up the solicitors bill for this as well as considerable time wasted by the Directors of Exmoor Associates, perhaps the Trustees should do the honourable thing and reimburse Exmoor Associates for all reasonable costs incurred from their personal accounts? "

I've never heard anyone contradict this reporting as a fair summation of what went on 15 years ago, and on the basis that it is correct, it is easy to see how Mr Miles and his friends are viewed as untrustworthy by both EA/YVT and given Mr Miles' record of lying at L&BRT AGMs, L&BRT members too.

But for me there are two points to be made.

First, the EA map from 2022 shows that within the L&B family, land ownership south of BG/OSHI is in the hands of both the L&BRT (in the form of the L&B CIC, the old L&B Property Company which now operates the railway at WB) and EA/YVT. Simply put, though EA holds by far the majority of the trackbed that is in the hands of the L&B family south of Wistlandpound, if the L&BRT through the L&B CIC wanted to be bloody minded and stop a railway being built south of Wistlandpound, then they could make it very difficult. Conversely, if EA/YVT refused to play ball with the Trust, then the Trust would have next to no trackbed to build on and hopes south of BG/OSHI would be dead.

To me, the answer is crystal clear: the two groups need to come together under neutral chairmanship to work up options south of BG/OSHI and then take them forward as a joint project.

Second, this means that anyone who refuses to work cooperatively on this shared future - because the railway won't get extended any other way - makes themselves an obstacle to progress, and therefore need to be removed/replaced. This includes anyone who says "I refuse to work with X because of what X did in year Y" - if that's your attitude then you've frankly got no place in the future of the project, and you should withdraw now.

The road will have bumps: there is much bad blood between the organisations, which has developed over many years, and this doesn't cease to exist with singing kumbayah around a campfire. But it will get overcome as people work together to a common goal, and success will beget success.

I hope that this new spirit of cooperation and reconciliation will be obvious at both the YVT/EA meeting at Goodleigh and the Trust meeting at Lynton next Saturday.

 

It's a long story, but briefly Geddes, the new Minister of Transport (the Ministry having superceded the Board of Trade in Railway matters) was against Light Railways being included in the Grouping which resulted in the main-line railways being forcibly amalgamated into 7, later 4 Companies. He thought Grouped Companies would take them over. When the L & B heard it would be excluded from the Grouping the L & B Directors pre-emptied this possible situation due to financial considerations and in late 1921 (so, after the Railways Act 1921) effectively asked the LSWR to take over the Company. The decision was brought on by the crippling increases in costs making the debenture interest not covered by net receipts, and a debenture renewal was coming up when holders might ask to be repaid. The Company had been here before in 1905 when the LSWR took on £20,000 debentures because of failure to renew. During and after WW1 there had been the war bonus to staff which was converted into a wage, higher than pre-war, the introduction by the Government of an eight-hour day, increasing costs of coal etc, and the imposition of a grading/wage structure inappropriate to a small line like the L & B, all of which with only a 75% increase (later reduced to 50%) in fares and almost doubling freight rates made the L & B unviable and heading for bankruptcy.

 

No less fascinating, though.
It all rings remarkably similar to the closure of the Lewes-East Grinstead railway in 1955- the original LEGR company had long ceased to exist, and had already gone through two subsequent owners before the BRB took it over in 1948.
Nonetheless, when Madge Bessemer challenged the closure, the legal finding was that the act still stood, and that the railway had to resume services, until the necessary act of Parliament for closure was obtained.
So in the case of the L&B, one could therefore legally argue, that the subsequent sale of any trackbed is/ has been legally null and void, until said act is repealed.
Food for thought?

 

I think that's adding 2+2 to make 5.

I can see how the anonymous caller might have made a case that, notwithstanding the 1923 Act, the obligation on the SR (as successor to the L&BR) to provide a service to Woody Bay remained in force. Extrapolating that to require that the entire trackbed be restored to the previous owner (in reality, I suspect the Heritage Railway Estate) seems a grave stretch - and I suspect if it were ever litigated, the courts would fall over themselves to avoid the recission of 90 years' worth of contracts.

 

Some of the details I wrote about, I did get wrong, but I am glad they have been corrected above, one thing I did not say was that I read somewhere that when a meeting was held to discuss the closure of the L&BR in Barnstaple, instead of hiring a train to take them to the meeting, the councillors from Lynton town hall hired a bus to take them to Barnstaple, nuff said.

 

Im far from an expert in these matters, but I cannot see how, constitutionally, an AGM can be conducted without AoB. Otherwise it then becomes a rally.

 

And having read the subsequent posts, I realise that question is no longer relevant.
I wonder why there was such specific focus on Woody Bay?
What a pity that Parracombe wasn't included in that

 

Thing is, IMO, if they were in breach, remedy would be in damages. If the extract is correct, the obligation is to maintain a station, not run a service. What is your loss on not having a nicely-maintained station on a railway that has closed? (Which nobody was using anyway)

Before you even get there though, the doctrine of implied repeal states that any new statute repeals (to the minimum extent necessary) any previous statute or rule of common law to allow the new statute to work.

Once L&Bco is dissolved, it cannot perform it's obligations, so any previous obligations would be implied away.

The difference between that and Lewes-East Grinstead was that that was the failure to properly operate the statutory machinery to close it properly, so it could be forced to go back and do it again.

 

As far as I understand it there doesn't necessarily need to be an AOB at an AGM. An AGM is not usually seen as a decision making meeting.

 

I don’t think it is quite right to say an AGM isn’t a decision-making meeting. There are decisions to be made, albeit normally quite regimented (appoint Trustees, appoint auditors, accept the directors’ annual report and accounts etc).

What would be unusual would be to have an AOB and use that to force a binding decision, the reason being that members not present in the meeting would not have had a proper opportunity to consider that item. So normally the function of an AOB would be to tease out information and commentary, rather than force a decision.

Tom

 

Purely speculatively, because there was a man on a mission (one of the first backers in fact) to make Woody Bay into a serious resort destination.

A branch to the coast there was an early hope.

So I read it as ‘obviously no one in their right mind will close Lynton to Barnstaple, but I’m going to make damn sure the trains always stop at Woody Bay’

 

I suggest that the issue is not whether it is a decision making meeting*, but whether the inclusion of items at short notice undermines the validity of any motions introduced in that way - especially where proxy voting is used as, well, a proxy for a postal ballot. A search up this thread will reveal much discussion, and some expertise, on relevant elements of company law.

This, incidentally, is why the apparent "consultation" on the CFL extension last year, has absolutely no standing, regardless of what may be said about how well or badly it was conducted on the evening. The trustees had the full authority to do as they did (again, there has been much discussion on the conduct of meetings on this thread), but to rest that claim on "the members support it" is not supported by what members have been formally asked to support.

* - if it weren't a decision making meeting, how could it result in a decision on the directors/trustees for the coming year?

 

And before anyone else does, I’ll get in with how lucky that man is that it’s ended up the only station with running trains…