Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

With respect, that’s not really evidence. We all know about one particular landowner, but I don’t think it is possible to assume that they are influencing others without some actual evidence of it happening.
Moving the railway offline in the enpa area is a non starter-you would never get planning permission for something that would be seen to be unnecessary construction/disturbance of the park. Rebuilding something that has already made its mark seems to be accepted.

 

Quite true, but...in the longer term with a reconstructed line southwards to, and through, PE then - not being part of the original trackbed - it will no longer be needed anyway.

 

Why would we want to move it anyway? When we already own all the trackbed from Killington Lane around to the Parracombe halt site

 

It was a suggestion from @DcB for a solution to the Parracombe situation.

 

I agree, at least in the sense that this doesn't need to be an "Us versus them" sort of situation. The important thing is that the land is the L&B owns the land into Parracombe, and can be a good presence within the community if/when trains get back there. Being a good neighbor, and a communal asset, can go a long way into fostering more positive relationships, even if there will always be dissent.

That was something the original L&B got wrong. And that's something that the current L&B has the ability to get right.

 

I'm puzzled - so how do you reckon that the original L&BR got it wrong please? After all, it closed down because the SR closed it, more to do with alleged low levels of traffic and high costs than 'problems with the neighbours' surely?

 

Reading reports and posts there are several in Parracombe that will see the benefits the railway could bring: more tourism can help provide jobs in gift shops, pubs and cafes, and help funding new houses for local young families and holiday lets.

But in the Churchtown area there is a wealthy landowning family near the halt, who have decided to have a "forever" home, do not want a noisy train bringing in tourists and have a lawyer to fight it. So doubt if permission to reopen the halt will be easy.
Best for the railway to liaise with the family, plus other properties, like the new owners of Heddon Hall, to find a way forward to get to Blackmoor Gate, perhaps if there is now a chance to change the local plan for a new route bypassing the family's land going north or south of the town?

Plus if a station is needed to help boost tourism in the north part of Parracombe, or trains just go direct from Blackmoor Gate to Woody Bay.

 

Indeed :-(

Do people never actually (a) read what has already been written on the subject so many times and (b) go and look at the area and appreciate the impractical nature of their suggestions (however well-meant they may be) ???

 

To be fair, this thread has been running since 2009, and has 818 pages, so it is perhaps a bit much to expect anyone to remember or read through all of it, and not everyone is within easy distance of the L&B to visit 'in the flesh' so to speak. Having said that, there is a fair bit of twaddle that gets posted from time to time (and yes, some of it has come from me too!)

 

Think the current Parracombe consultation will bring a mixture of responses, but without the landowners south of Parracombe onboard, will not be worth applying for planning permission if it will not progress, like past attempts?

 

Time can be, and is, a great changer. And with the L&BRly we're talking in increments of a century.
What I'm trying to say is that just because something is how it is now, it will not remain so indefinitely. But sometimes, one does need infinite patience. And tact. And diplomacy...

 

A functioning railway to an (albeit truncated) terminus at PE will bring various benefits IMHO, not least a sense of long-overdue extension. At least then we will have a better base from which to plan an extension to Blackmoor rather than the current 'middle-of-nowhere' KL.

Furthermore, it is to be hoped that over time, as more and more PE residents come to appreciate the potential benefits, then the level of potential opposition will decline to the point that the ENPA will view the railway's plans for getting to BR with greater favour.

 

I say this with more about how the L&B didn’t exactly suit itself well with locals the first go around: be it by a lack of proximity as was the case with Woody Bay or Lynton’s stations to the towns and villages they were supposed to serve, or with the difficulties with Parracombe that resulted in that village, the only notable one the L&B actually had proximity to, never having a proper station. Had those things been a bit different, it may have lasted longer.

As others have made it clear, opinions are not going to always be set in stone. The focus, to me, isn’t about them or what they think. They have a right to their opinions and the best thing that you can do, is to do the right things a good neighbor does, and hope that a positive presence makes a difference in the long term.