Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Start by looking at ENPA, who have taken a vast amount of time on the S73 application effectively running the clock down on the original planning. The trust have used a planning agent (Arup) for advice etc who know much more than you or I about the planning process.

Once a new planning application is submitted, the expiration of the 2018 planning consent may well work in our favour.

Rather than constantly criticising the Trustees why not try offer constructive advice.

 

Thomas, are you by any chance related to any of the trustees as it seems you exude the same kind of attitude both on here and the FB page of which you are admin as 89 % of them possess!

 

I agree with Tobbes that having the compulsory powers in the back pocket would have made a huge difference by now.

That said we also need to have the money in the back pocket to pay for all of this at the same time, I cant help but think just how much money we might have had in the trackbed fund after five years of promotion.

I did but I was told that it wasn't wanted.

Yet they have failed in five years to raise the sort of money that is required to build this extension. I am not being negative here but if some one launches an appeal for just over £1 million Pounds with just a few weeks to go and they raise less than a 1/4 of the total how does that look to you?

 

I have as much to do with the trustees as you do. This constant "oh we'll just CP this" and "We'll just CP that" is one of the biggest points of contention amongst the locals. Compulsory purchase powers are a last last last resort. Even if you did get a TWAO there's no grantee you'd be granted CP powers.

 

As I understand it quite a few people have tried to offer professional advice and help and sadly they have been ignored

 

And your solution without a CPO is precisely what, @Thomas Woods ?

Agreed, but we are in a situation where at least one landowner has repeatedly public stated that they will not sell willingly at any price, so we're in "last last last resort" territory.

True. But failing to apply for a TWAO guarantees that you won't get the CP powers that are now clearly required to push the railway south of Parracombe Halt.

 

I imagine that it would be incredibly difficult to raise funds for most railway projects during a pandemic, supporting the established projects would have taken most of the good will of supporters.

How to attract investors to a project when there are conditions attached, I can see being a hard project to sell. As I said, the expiry of the planning may work in our favour. Raising £250,000 in a couple of weeks is quite remarkable and shows what the L&B means to people, which should be appreciated rather than criticised.

 

There is a letter of objection that exists to do with a planning application from a solicitor suggesting that at a private meeting 'a representative from the railway' mentioned the use of CP powers, so its not just members / followers of the railway that apparently mention CP

 

The unlikelihood of getting CP powers means a generation or more delay getting thru Parracombe. All the more reason why the railway should turn to Plan B or C. If moving north thru Caffyns to Lynton is also impossible (up thread it was stated that there's another firm objection from a landowner on this route) then Blackmoor - Wistlandpound - Bratton Flemming - Chelfham is the only way forward if the railway is to extend in the next 30 years. Exactly where the first section of this route should be can be decided by the new Board after the purge of the old guard ...

 

I have to agree. Whilst fund raising has been difficult over the last three years a number of railways have been able to proceed with quite major and expensive projects supported by donations. The GCR "Loughborough gap" project, the GWSR bridge repairs, and various loco builds and rebuilds and a number of other projects have been well supported. Why the L & B left its run so late is a fair question but the response was immediate and substantial. ( Just compare it with the West Somerset's appeal for a million quid which sort of faded away after failing to attract noticeable support after several months.)
It is not clear what went wrong with the withdrawn application, despite our resident blowhards' opinions, and the Trustees need time to assess the situation and come up with a new plan. If that looks acceptable the donations will follow.

 

I am not criticising the effort but I do get the impression that they think it is easy to raise money, if you want a hard project to sell try raising funds for an AIDS charity, I had a great friend who done just that I am sure he raised something like a £1million pound over 5 years in the 1980's.

What I took from him was his never give up attitude to fundraising, he could turn the simplest of things into a fund raiser, he could have three or four small fundraisers on the go, they may only earn say £50.00 pounds each but his enthusiasm knew no bounds.

If we want to raise large amounts of money then only having one person doing all of this is not going to work for the L&BR, part of the trick is to keep the membership happy and on your side, you also need to make sure you keep them in the loop.

Another little trick I learned from another fundraiser was to have personal birthday cards addressed to each donor and inside you would include a brief outline of what has happen to there donation, then you would also suggested a new project and if they would like to make another donation to it at this time.

If you don't have their date of birth, this can work just as well at Christmas time, but the trick here is you don't ask for more than a fiver. Even if it is a multimillion pound project. The reason being is that not everyone will but a fair number always put more into the pot at this time of year if they think it is worth it.

Launching a project at certain times of the year is also critical.

I am always learning new ideas for fund raising some work other don't but that is just part of the world of a fundraiser.

I should add that many years ago I attended a workshop run by Marion Allford. Whose that you may well ask. If I said to you that she put the GOSH into the Great Ormond Street Hospital wishing well appeal that at the time was the biggest fund raiser for a charity it might start to make more sense. Her plan or system works, I think it ended up with something like £50million pounds and yet it is still going today.

 

Maybe start by looking at the TRUST who didn't put in for the s73 until May of last year, by their own admittance they engaged ARUP in May 2021 to prepare the s73 so did it take 3 years and 2 months to get 'legal councils advice'. Its always so easy to point the finger of blame elsewhere

 

Agree totally - any election would have to follow the rules which allows for a proportion of the trustees to retire and an election to be held to elect replacements or re-elect existing incumberts. The existing trustees have taken professional advice which is TOTALLY the right thing to do - due to external issues this has not delivered the outcome we wanted. Whose fault is this - clearly not the trustees in my view.

 

Agree totally - the posts from this source are mostly negative.

 

I broadly agree, but think there are still significant questions to be answered about how they have played their hand.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

I am unclear why blame for the 'current planning situation' is needed. We are where we are and need to move forward from here. We need to understand why we are in this situation and work out the best way forward. The planning consultants engaged by the trust need to some up with some recommendations as to the best way forward. I don't regard myself as someone qualified to comment on this - but have been involved with a number of planning applications and feel that some of the comments on this forum show a lack of understanding of the process.

 

You mix two very distinct issues. One is of leadership style, where there is at least a case that the Trust leadership have not maximised the potential outcomes - the discussions in general, and especially posts from @Tobbes, about the Old Station House Inn show how this might be made.

The other is the frankly wild charge about adherence to Charities Commission etc. guidance. That is dangerous language, and I find it hard to give serious credence to anyone throwing that around. Governance is about how decisions are made, and good governance reduces the chances of bad decisions being made. It does not prevent mistakes, nor does it guarantee the ideal outcomes.

This matters because the effect of this planning (non-)decision will have a serious impact on the L&B. I’m seeing a lot of ideas being thrown around for how to fix things, but much less about what the actual problems are. Taking a medical principle, “first do no harm”, it seems that an accurate diagnosis is necessary before trying to operate on the patient. At the moment, we are possibly only at the stage of describing some of the symptoms.

In another post also mention fundraising techniques, and especially the lady behind the GOSH appeals. It’s always worth learning from others (though unsolicited cards from charities tend to push them down my “give to” list), but also worth note that good fundraisers are like hens teeth, and not able to be cloned.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Just taking that one point - how much would that cost? Say £2 to get a card and mail it out singly? So unless the take up rate is better than 40%, you are straight away into the scheme costing more to deliver than it raises. Personally, I tend to react strongly against the tactics of a lot of the larger national charities that are too pushy in soliciting donations with endless fliers and mailings etc., since in many cases I tend to get a perception - real or imagined doesn't matter, it is the perception that counts - that the fundraising has become an end in itself, rather than a means to deliver the actual charitable ends desired. I always look very closely at the internal costs of a charity before deciding where to target donations.

For railway fundraising in general, it is easier to raise money for projects that have a high perceived rate of success than those that look risky. It's often hard to get money - especially in mass numbers of small donations - for a project in the early stages; but towards the end the money flows more freely, because naturally enough there is much more desire from many people to join what they see as a winning team than a losing one. I'm not saying that the L&B is a "losing team", but over the last few pages there has been lots of criticism about fundraising, but without actually much clear explanation around "fund rising for what?" (The WSR was tangentially referenced and I think that is a good example: an amorphous appeal for £1m with no real clear indication as to what it would be used for. That's a hard sell, as was proven by teh relatively desultory take up).

Stepping back a bit, having caught up on the last few pages of this thread after a weekend away, I get the sense of a mass lashing out, but in a very unfocused way. We've had everything from "sack the trustees" to "head off in a different direction" to "operate lots of short fragments of railway with new-build as yet undesigned battery electric vehicles with regenerative charging" (somehow ignoring the logistics of a typical family, or indeed what that would do to local car journeys as you day-tripped along the line by car?) through to "just get on with the steps leading to compulsory purchase". But, pace @35B, everyone is focusing on "something must be done" and no-one on "what exactly is the problem we are trying to fix?".

"We don't have enough money"; "we have the wrong people running the show"; "we don't have an agreed strategic roadmap to deliver our objective" or "we don't know what our realistic long-term objective is" are four very different problems with four very different solutions; no-one seems focused on agreeing what the issue is, so instead you seem to have separate groups of people all shouting very loudly that one or the other of those things absolutely urgently needs doing.

Tom

 

thanks for the injection of reason.

 

We seem to have descended into the (sadly) usual onlinery (yes I made that word up). Doubtless there were mistakes. However, here in Suffolk we have suffered the same way, and are bruised from multiple planning applications (and a very expensive Appeal) which sought to restore at least part of the Southwold Railway as a working heritage line - applications going back at least 20 years. It has become clear that vested interests will do their best to stop any such development happening, because they hate the very idea - whether this hatred is based on any real knowledge of heritage railways, or of their real effect on the neighbours' amenity - well, I leave that to you to decide!
Doubtless the general feelings are similar in the two rural areas - first, what's the point of it all (if you are not a railway enthusiast, which most people are not) - secondly, the perceived benefits (which are frankly not believed) are totally outweighed by the perceived damage to people's lives, thirdly, many/most of the people involved in the application do not live in the area (shouldn't matter, but it does).
Here the wildlife lobby is very influential (they KNOW that railways destroy birds - and you can't tell them different: I imagine that in the SW that is the same). For example - the RSPB were and are convinced that a 10mph 14-tonne steam loco running at Wenhaston would destroy the Minsmere bird sanctuary, at a distance of 9 miles. Yes, I know how silly that sounds, but they don't. Similar lobbying may have gone on.
Our experience (if I may be cynical for a moment) is that in such a rural area the same people are involved on all the various committees, bringing their agenda with them - and you get, for example, what we at one stage were faced with - an application was recommended for approval by the officer involved, but the elected councillors were then (with no discussion) instructed thus - "OK - reasons for refusal".