Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Parracombe needs to be approached much more gently with minimal development beyond a single line. The L&B should forget the idea of a loop to be later removed - people have no faith in this sort of promise. A halt should be provided if the natives want one. They didn't want one at Nantmor on the WHR until the scheme was all approved and then they changed their minds. The suggestion of "7,000 HGV movements" can be dismissed; the railway was built from virgin countryside with no HGV movements and it can be restored with none (within the village). It my involve a harder way of working but it is possible.

As for CPO speculation, the railway needs to buy every possible parcel as they become available, including offering a premium to those who profess not to want to sell to the railway. The test of whether a CPO under the TWA would be successful is basically whether the project is in the public interest and whether that interest is of a higher order than the loss of property rights of the existing owners. If the parcels required to be bought by CPO are open land that was formerly the railway right-of-way there would be a much stronger probability of success. If the railway required extra land and particularly if it required any residential property, that could be very sticky. Before applying for a TWA Order they need to have a convincing case that funding will be available, that they have made long and strenuous efforts to acquire the land by negotiation and that the project can be carried through to completion. By that I mean to Blackmoor Gate, they have rightfully not tried to bite off too much by going all the way to Barnstaple in one application.

I was once involved in a multi-million pound urban road scheme. A CPO plan was prepared which, in line with convention, showed all the land in the Order coloured pink. It looked like a huge semi-circle around the city centre, quite a monstrous impact. I recognised the PR damaged of this and asked for a "parallel" plan to be prepared showing what really needed to be acquires from others. On this the CPO had a red boundary, existing highways were grey, non-highway land owned by the Council was yellow and land still to be required was pink. The result was that the pink shrank to around 10% of what it had been; we showed visually that we owned 90% of the land needed.

 

Hi Robin,

I've broad shoulders, so take your remark in jest, (though I have no interest whatsoever in old SR slam door stock).

Fairview, Parracombe is on the market for I think £415,000. As far as I can make out, the re-instatement of the railway cuts across the driveway. Not sure what the position was when the house was built in 1911.

I dont know what the position is with 'The Halt' bungalow, Parracombe.

As mentioned previously, I dont know of a precedent for Parracombe in Railway preservation. Compulsary purchase powers can be applied for as part of a TWAO, but it is not certain they would always be granted, especially in the case of a railway providing no transport 'need' other than a tourist attraction. (Perhaps the legal niceties of this might form an interesting debate?)

Cheers,
Julian

 

"Fairview" has been on the market for some years,(listed @ 450,000 pds in 2013, currently 410,000 ) and was the subject of discussion on an earlier thread. The current owner seems to be a railway enthusiast judging by his large garden railway, which models that section of the L & B, set up in the cutting of the old trackbed.
The owners have submitted two objections to the current proposal from which it appears that they believe the re-instatement of the line will physically impact upon the house itself. My understanding was that the new line would follow the old formation up to, and through, the Church Lane bridge before opening out to the new Halt area. As Fairview was built after the original line, I would have thought reinstatement of the track through the existing cutting would have relatively little impact. I cannot find the track proposal for this area in the planning application but perhaps somebody can confirm my understanding of that part of the development ?
Reading the owners' objections suggests to me that they are finding themselves in something of a cleft stick and being elderly and not in good health are a little frightened of what the future might bring. Perhaps somebody from L&B/EA needs to sit down with them and gently go over the proposals and discuss their options ?

 

Glad to hear it. I have always found that the ability to laugh at one's self is an essential feature of maintaining sanity...

Kind regards

Robin

 

Hi Dainton Banker,

Yes, discussing these things in a sensible manner is the best approach. In the situation I once dealt with over 25 years ago, what was hostile opposition ended up after a decent face to face meeting with the preserved railway chairman and my clients and myself led to conditions attached to the LRO (it might have been via a memoranda) and withdrawal of opposition.

I have read the Fairview objection in some detail. I agree some further info on what the situation was between 1911 and 1935 would be useful. Obviously quite a lot has changed since 1935.

It is one thing to be a railway enthusiast (my clients above were in this category which was one reason why they bought an old station house) but it is quite another matter to have steam trains crossing your garden with punters able to peer into your windows and destroy what was for 30 years a property bought in a quiet secluded location with no prospect of the railway being re-instated for much of that time.

Fairview is one problem property. There are plenty of others in Parracombe, some apparently very well organised and with ample funds to oppose the re-instatement.

I can see the planning applications going to full scale inquiries, and an inquiry with the TWAO.

This rather calls into question the viability of the extension if funds get exhausted on legal disputes.

The WHR rebuilding was ultimately dependent on outside sourcing of grant funding.

I havent seen any mention of anything like the help the WHR received re the L&BR plans for the extensions.

Cheers,
Julian

 

Thank you, Julian, but I made no mention of the situation between 1911 and 1935. It is clear that the house was built some time after the line and the two co-existed up to the closure of the railway. At some point after closure the cutting must have been sold to the owners of Fairview, presumably at the same time other parts of the trackbed were sold off. It doesn't really matter when as there is no dispute about current ownership.
From what I can see, but I am happy to be corrected if wrong, the cutting is deep enough to hide the house from the view of passengers. After all the original owners would have been faced with the same possibility and would have designed their house and garden accordingly. It is not really comparable with an ex-Station at the same level as the track.

Mike

 

OK, so those are some of the obstacles to tackle.

What are the solutions, in your view?

Robin

 

The worst aspects of the speculation that was rife on the WSRA thread are showing up here. The L&B should have done this, the L&B needs to sit down and do that....
I'm confident that the L&B team dealing with the planning permissions have thought all this through and have indeed been talking to people. The proposal for two houses is intended to replace the bungalow, and then add an affordable unit as per current guidelines. Maybe we could stop all the doom and gloom and just wait a while until we hear the results of the application????

 

If anyone wants to buy Fairview, I'll happily manage it as a B&B. It's bound to make a killer profit in high season!

 

I never understand the 'doom and gloom' merchants.

The nadir for the L&B was 1936, and look where we are today.

Examples like the Welsh Highland and, forgive me, the recent return of the WSRA into sensible hands, show what can be achieved when folks of good sense get stuck in.

Robin

 

Parracombe by Kingscross posted Apr 12, 2016 at 8:59 AM

If I have managed to upload the file correctly, the image here is the second edition OS overlaid over a modern GIS map showing the position of Fairview (arrowed) relative to the railway. What was then a railway cutting is now the house's garden as far as the overbridge to the South.

 

The L&B team have (of course) been in communication with all the landowners for many years. I did hear a rumour that the price being asked for Fairview (or maybe the Halt) was way beyond market value. I do find some of the comments in Mrs. Grob's objection to be highly objectionable! No doubt, these people are holding out for the best price they can get for their land.

Let's not forget that the L&B Team have worked very closely over the past couple of years with Exmoor National Park Council Planning Department to ensure that the plans meet all the council's requirements. The plans have been developed by Arup (who have also produced the engineering design for HS2), who ought to know what they're doing.

According to the Exmoor National Park Planning website, the target date for the decision is 4th May. Not too long to wait.

 

Hear, hear! Let's not try to borrow tomorrow's (potential) problem today.

 

The owners of 'The Halt' are those I mentioned earlier as referring to approaches from the L&B as "arrogant and offensive". Their objection can be read at 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 2016.02.17 - Rose Cottage.pdf

 

Ouch. Emotions definitely very high there - something that may be more important than hard facts in negotiations, though possibly not the planning process.

 

Double Ouch! something has happen since I spoke to him years ago, as he was all for it then. This was before he built the bungalow mind you.

Sadly someone has upset the apple cart in this case

From what I can remember, the whole land/trackbed jigsaw at Parracombe is very complicated

 

The Daily Mail had an article on Fairview with pictures:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...25-000-house-run-steam-train-garden-hour.html

 

I do find it a shame that, despite the great potential the railway offers for the area if not the whole of Devon itself, there is such hostility towards it in this one place specifically.
Of course I'd agree diplomacy is the recomended action in this Parracombe situation, and I've no doubt the L&B team will do so with great professionalism, as they have being showing before to have.
However, I also know from personal experience that sometimes no matter how civil and good intentioned you may be in trying to persuade people to support a plan that'll have an effect on them, they'll still outright oppose it no matter what, and if that happens what then? Do they abandon this scheme of rebuilding the L&B altogether? No, of course not, no one would honestly want that, most people and authorities in the area seem to want this to happen,one way or another.
Really if no agreement can be reached then, then I see two options: either seek other land so the railway can bypass Parracombe altogether, or do as the WHR did to an extent, barge their way through objectors and just get it built, and they'll soon inevitably they'll have to get used to it... Rather blunt a method I know, but I'm pretty sure in many cases, when it comes to the support of many versus the objections of the few, the side with the most in support just wins hands down.

 

Out of interest and picking up on something that was mentioned before, could somebody explain what the thinking behind having a loop at Parracombe is? It seems to me that with one train you can have a departure roughly every hour and a half. So obviously with 2 trains that would be down to around every 45 minutes. This is comparable to other heritage railways of a similar length and shorter. Is there really a need to run more than 2 trains which could be crossed at Blackmoor Gate anyway.

Tim