Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

You keep asking for compromise. Are you really asking for everyone to simply do what the trust wants? I see no compromise in any of the recent actions by the trust board, and given their broken promises, little reason to believe that they want to engage in finding any way forward that they didn’t invent for themselves. It takes all parties to compromise. The healing you so desperately seek cannot start until the trustees are ready to be part of the process. In reality that’s all most people are currently asking of them. Be part of the process.

 

Let's see if I can do this right in responding to each bit hehe..
OK, no disrespect to the vicars, I have spoken to them occasionally and indeed attended the Armistice Remembrance Service at WB out of respect to the fallen and in recognition that sometimes multi-faith is the right thing to do. But I am not of that path. I don't see how anyone whether Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or otherwise can be seen as independent if they are a member and could be subject to persuasion or let bias creep in. The only way to prevent that is by engaging a completely independent panel or person.

I think we have to note that John Barton posted an update recently where it appears the ENPA responded in a very helpful way, I would suggest that perhaps either their view has changed or perhaps issues that were present in the Parracombe scenario isn't at CFL.

We don't know if Grampian Conditions will be imposed again for reasons I have given before. And I have also just posted about what happened and subsequent events which hobbled the application we had in previously.

As far as I know certain meetings you need to be invited to speak. Outreach is no good if people keep commenting from hundreds of miles away muddling up what the outreaches are trying to do.

Did anyone signing up for OSHI expecting to become millionaires??

I'm not being funny but where is the crystal ball that foretold the pandemic, Brexit fallout, Ukraine Invasion and cost of living crisis?? 2019 was a blissful year, it all changed in early 2020 and hasn't stopped since in my view.

What do I think,

No comment for reasons I've already given.

Yes to maybe forums with the locals, but only the locals. This all ultimately impacts them the most. The results of those forums can be relayed to the membership but in my view should not be involved because to be honest some of the comments can be extremely unhelpful, admittedly some are from non members too.

But even then we may get no resolution, the fractures are that deep and so long standing. In my view any progress there has to be by compromise and forgiveness for events long ago. Find the solution to the past and you have a solution to the future.

I have no idea how much is in there. Anyone actually bothered to ask?

 

Compromise and forgiveness for events long ago? Frankly if there are people in positions of trust who can’t move on from events of yesteryear they should step down.

 

I would rather we kept the experience tbh, let bygones be bygones and all move forward. None of the past can be changed, mistakes were made, as more will no doubt be made. Even the Charity Commission understands that not all future events can be foretold and that mistakes happen.
All the seniors across the L&B family have achieved wonders since the start, they all have invaluable experience, we need that experience.
Yes we need new blood, but the way this is happening is damaging.
All in my opinion of course.

 

Well, both Anne and the Trust Board need to agree on such a panel - in the first round it appears to have been diktats from Miles which is hardly the compromise and healing you're calling for, @DaveE

Let's hope so, but John Barton's idea of consultation doesn't do much for confidence in his openness or as a team player.

But it would be prudent to plan on the reasonable worst case basis that they will be, rather than getting caught short (again). Planning for the best case and having no plan B is a decent description of how we are where we are.

I was thinking of us hiring the hall and putting on tea and cakes and having an open forum on a monthly basis.

Dave, your consistent insistence of "trust the Board, they're amazing and anyone who questions them are undermining everything" is getting a bit offensive, to be honest. There has been precious little acceptance that the Board made any mistakes since 2018, and in fact everything that goes wrong is conveniently someone else's fault. This is obviously nonsense, so why keep insisting on it?

Don't avoid the point: the issue is that it is perfectly healthy - and indeed, sensible - t0 worry about the extremely unclear liabilities that the Trust has taken on with OSHI/LBBC. You can wish the pub and LBBC all the best and at the same time be pragmatic about the impact on the Trust if it goes wrong. Like the Grampian Conditions, you plan for the reasonable worst case and then if things are easier, great.

Yes, and no response as usual.

What is required to avoid the mistakes being repeated is an honest, open, conversation about what happened and why. This is not a blame game, but a learning tool - but this requires openness and honesty, neither of which are currently obviously evident.

One of the saddest things about the current situation is that the record of achievement is being irreprably tarnished by the conduct of the Miles-supporting faction on the Board. In refusing to stand up for good governance, adherence to our rules and not being open and honest about what went wrong and why, there previous successes risk being significantly undermined. Not a good look - but one wholly of their own making.

This is what happens when a Board refuses to engage with the Members, and actively tries to rig its own elections. There's no one to blame but Mr Miles and those who should have stood up to him and his abuses of power and decided not to. Well, you makes your bed....

 

I have said no such thing anywhere. My response is regarding the locals and comments about them especially on social media which can undermine any outreach project or negotiations run by anyone across the L&B family, nothing to do with the Trust in particular. You are linking my words solely to the Trust, not me.

 

I guess we can debate til the cows come home really, so many opinions and angles it can be looked at from.
And on that note, I bid everyone a good night, I'm shattered

 

I'm sorry, Dave, but I have to agree with @Tobbes here. I know you mean well but you do keep countering any suggestion of criticism of the Trust Board with very detailed replies that imply you are in close contact with the Trustees but which, at the same time, do not acknowledge that they may have made the odd mistake. A number of members have raised specific valid issues on here only for you to brush them to one side as unworthy or unreasonably hostile. It is noticeable that few people agree with you which suggests that it may be you who are out of step with the members as represented on this thread.

You are right to say that the best path forward is through reconciliation but, as the saying goes : "It takes two to tango". There is little sign that the Trustees as a group recognise or understand the need to communicate either with their own membership or with the communities concerned.

You refer to comments made about locals on "social media" but few, if any, have been made on this platform, apart from references to the lady who is the main objector. There has been no personal abuse either of her or of the other objectors, and our moderators would deal with it immediately if it happened. As you are new to NP you perhaps do not realise that this is not Facebook where anybody can join up and rant without being subject to moderation. We cannot be held responsible for postings on FB, indeed I'm surprised that anybody takes any notice of them but, if damage has been done, all the more reason to engage in a PR exercise.

 

To be blatantly honest if two trustee's and two CIC directors were removed, a lot of the arrogance would be gone and the L&BR world would start to be a happier place, a lot of the issues between the wider L&BR family have been caused by these 4 men wanting to dominate the show, in my honest opinion their best before date has well and truly run out, they and a few others cannot and wont accept change, they don't want their exclusive group chipped away at, and seem to be willing to try anything to stop that from happening, heaven knows they will be trying to change the M &AoAs next if we don't watch out so that only they can hire and fire the trustee's then we really could be in the.... no power to the members!

 

It may well appear that "I am close to the Trust" but I don't get secrets. I think pretty much all I have said is either in the public domain, been spoken about at Members Forums, AGMs or been topic of conversations at Woody Bay over the years.
I've been to pretty much every Gala for the past 8 years, almost as many AGMs, and also a few of the members forums. So my posts may be more detailed than some because I can remember the pre-application stages and have followed it all quite closely ever since being as its important to the railway.

Nothing I say is meant to be derogatory to anyone here. Much of the focus of the debate seems to surround the last 5 years since we got the approval for the planning but the timeline for it all goes back further.

I have not said that mistakes have not been made, one of those mistakes could be said was perhaps listening to the professional advice given by a grant funded development study, at the tone and in the economic environment, perhaps it was right, but with the planning process taking many years, and then the subsequent global events which none of could have predicted, has meant it wasn't right at all.

Communication? I think we all recognise the communication needs to improve and with John's recent updates that has I think begun to be addressed.

Social media. I fully realise NP is not Facebook. But NP is visible and listed on search engines.such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. The admin of forum like NP will have small files in the server side forum programming which allow search engines to view and list on the search engines the content if allowed. Before I joined NP I could read every single post, it's not hidden behind a login.and private. Why did I join? Because I had heard so many many times... "Have you seen what's on Nat Pres?". The reach of a forum isn't always based on the participants, that number can be very very low, but the eyes that read can be very large, especially if the forum admin have good search engine optimisation.

Facebook, think back to the old fashioned pub, the veritable den of rumours and conspiracy theories etc, but it was limited in range to that locality. Facebook is the same but far worse, and it's reach is national and international. What is posted is across the world in a split second and is seen by so many.
Being as pretty much anyone with an interest in the L&B, both for and against, will be following the Facebook groups and pages even if they haven't joined, any comments are very much noticed and by far more than most realise.

PR? Not sure how any amount of PR can prevent the negatives of social media, even the best PR can come across problems in having any control over social media.

 

With respect, I think that is something of a muddled view.

My understanding of the process - and I stand to be corrected as necessary - is that the Trust submitted one single application for the whole of the trackbed from KL to the ENPA boundary at Blackmoor. The other 4 applications were for anciliary items such as (a) the site for the new Depot (which is not on 'old' trackbed land), (b) use of some land at KL for recycling of waste materials, (c) car-park and other non-railway access works at Blackmoor and (d) the construction of two new houses at PE to replace the (once demolished) bungalow. AFAIK the ENPA always treated those as 5 separate applications, nor was there ever any initial set of applications to do the trackbed in stages.

It may well be the case that "...the ENPA responded in a very helpful way..." in relation to the Trust's recent enquiries regarding CFL, but I do not think that fact alone gives any grounds to suspect that the outcome will be any different than before. IMHO a key indicator will be the initial response from the majority of local residents to any new proposals.

 

You may be right, I seem to recall chatting at Woody Bay about the trackbed sections though before the application. Probably resolved in pre-application discussions with ENPA. So long ago now.

That is very much key, how do the locals feel now about the move slightly further out of Parracombe.

 

I don't have a dog in this fight, but - "every war or conflict...has ended where they started"? Second World War? The world of 1946, after the unconditional surrender and the complete destruction of Axis regimes, was radically different from the world of 1938 (as it would also have been if the Axis had won). The various invasions of what is now the UK - the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans - the country was hardly the same after any of those - and instead of talking around a table they just took power! The long war between Islam and Christianity which culminated in the second Siege of Vienna - a complete rout of Islam - can you imagine what Europe would have been like if that had gone the other way? And in NO case were any substantive or lasting agreements made after - one side had WON, and that was it.

On other current matters - I have no knowledge of the personalities involved here, or what they did or didn't do - but let's assume for the sake of argument that railway management acted immorally or even unlawfully. If that is the case, then there should, on the grounds of natural justice, be consequences - or everyone else will think they can get away with similar things in the future. Just wiping the slate clean never works, because nothing is thereby resolved, and the organisation is always crippled by (quite natural) resentment - no true moving on is possible.

 

That's true. I'm not the best historian. But I hope most know what I mean, it's the damage done to the railway, which in my view is the most important factor as it can last for years afterwards.

Sadly I think there will be lasting resentment no matter what.. At least, I've now resigned myself to that happening anyway

 

The damage has been done. It is very clear to me as a new member, but a keen observer for a while, that there are many bridges to be built both within the Land B and without. Whether or not the current players have the capacity or capabilities for that is now irrelevant. They are tarnished by the battles of the past. For all the good they have done, they should go.

That doesn’t mean drumming them out of town, but it means finding others who can be the voice and face of the organisation and build bridges, bridges that cannot be built by current characters because of who they are.

I would like to see new trustees. I’d like there to be real effort put into creating some kind of steering group to coordinate the strategy among all the parties. I would like the current trustees to be available to support that.

 

The "Old Guard" hanging on for too long is not new. I can remember it happening with TR council chairmen and council members more than once. Change took a long time because they had amassed a majority of "armchair" members who innocently thought that the status quo was perfectly fine. After a good deal of actrimony the incumbents were persuaded "upstairs" as Hon. Presidents or Vice Presidents. Some took it with good grace and went on to still have a good infuence on the railway, with their reputation intact and service duly recognised. Others took umbrage and slowly faded away, to their own personal detriment.
It seems as though the time has come for something similar to happen with the L&B Trust.

 

There are so many wonderful people who have been brought together by the collective aim of restoring this railway, it really does pain me to see the upsets and between so many I class as friends and have had great and fascinating conversations with over time.

Its those bridges I am trying to rebuild really... Not very successfully I may add.

 

Umpteen pages of bickering and reporting of internecine warfare and no progress! Will the last one to leave turn the lights out, and perhaps someone could wake us all up once there is something genuinely positive (by which I mean not just acquiring bits of land here and there; important though they are) in the progress towards rebuilding the railway!

 

What positive news do you want ? Acquiring bits of land is essential if the railway is to be rebuilt. OSHI and Bratton Fleming station have been purchased, and there is a proposal to acquire the old school at Chelfsham for use as a base. All positive things. Unfortunately expansion through Parracombe is blocked for the present. It may be possible to extend the existing track to Cricket Field Lane but that will not add much to the existing operation. Other options are under consideration.
Perhaps you'd like to suggest something we should do that, in your view, would be "positive".

 

Making some positive use of at least some of the acquisitions is what most of us hope to see. By themselves, yes they are important but they are useless (in the correct sense of the word!).