Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

that may be very true but the biggest issue is that the Trust over the years has acted as if they have a right to come through and have upset enough people in Parracombe that its caused a major issue, and as far as im aware they still haven't engaged with the locals one on one by going door to door and talking and with the mess they have caused over the years thats the minimum they should be doing otherwise it will be another free for all

 

The same could be said of Cricket Field Lane, the access road to it is shared with Heddon Hall, so if people start parking up through there im sure that will cause an issue, in fact part of the stick certain trustee's used to beat Chris Duffell with as part of their plan to get him removed as a trustee was that during the hedging he was overseeing the contractor 'turned his vehicle' on the drive of Heddon Hall upsetting the owners and that other directors had to defuse the situation so im sure they wont be happy with people parking down there to look at the train running around

 

For a possibly comparative view elsewhere in North Devon, let us imagine that an application for planning permission is submitted by 'a group' to rebuild the line from Barnstaple Junction to Bideford (New), with the longer-term view of eventually extending to Torrington. The local authority says 'yes' in principle, but insists that the railway can go only to the site of Bideford (Old). That would mean that any future southward extension would render the 'Old' station site redundant and mean extra work to then divert to the 'New' station instead. Both 'Old' and 'New' Bideford stations were/are 'in Bideford', so why the difference ?

OK, not the best example perhaps, but I still fail to see how the proposed CFL site can be considered to be so much further away from the centre of Parracombe village than the original (Churchtown) station site as to be considered 'outside' of PE?

 

I think the issue with the local plan may be about what constitutes "reinstatement".

I hear positive noises, from people I trust; my hope is that the underpinnings are there to justify them.

 

I do hope that the application to extend to CFL doesn’t harden negative attitudes towards the railway and make more difficult the future steps the railway may want to take.

 

Indeed. I would quite understand it if, as a result, some of the objectors were to take a "why can't the railway take 'no' for an answer" attitude and become even more entrenched in their views, possibly without even bothering to study the application carefully enough to find some benefit(s) in the revised approach (if there are any...).

 

I had actually made a comment elsewhere to 'stop poking the bear' that is Parracombe, in my opinion an extension to CFL has had its day for now, it could have been started back in 2009 when planning was so much easier and there was less resistance to the railway, some current trustee's who had taken up position just a year or so before that time decided to go for the bigger plan, a few years later they achieved the permission but ultimately failed to succeed with anything so we are back full circle, back to the beginning but with a lot more local opposition, why not leave Parracombe be for now, concentrate efforts on buying the missing track bed from Blackmoor back to Parracombe bank and concentrate on building a viable line between OSI and Wistlandpound and plan to get the sheds and workshop at Rowley built in a structured fashion, with all of this in place and only 1 piece of land required a TWAO will be more achievable

 

Surely direct access from the A39 will be factored in ?

 

LOL!

 

Is the proposed station site at Cricket Field Lane effectively where the occupation crossing is shown on Google Maps please? Just curious, no hidden agenda for asking.

 

If it is they will have to purchase some more land, as it stands it seems they will struggle to get a station in there at the moment

 

Yes it will be factored in - in all likelihood, there will be no direct (or even indirect) access from the A39 - not even for pedestrians.

 

If you look at the field to the right of the junction of Parracombe lane and the A39, in its bottom right hand corner is a clump of trees, at the moment as far as im aware that is the triangle of land where the station site is to be situated

 

From a 2020 working weekend report, (see https://www.lynton-rail.org.uk/story/working-weekend-24th-26th-january ) the map shows the location of Cricket Field Lane - about halfway along the red line of the trackbed CFL is not a public right of way in either direction from the trackbed. The additional triangle of land mentioned above is partly hidden under the red line. Search "cricket field lane" on the L&B archive site for reports and images dating back to 2008.

 

The L&B is launching a series of behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube:

Episode 1 features General Manager Stuart Nelhams setting the scene:

 

I don’t claim enough knowledge to know the right answer to all this. But on point deserves comment; that being the claim; "I also wonder where the punters might park their cars so as to board at the southern end for their day trip to Lynton?”

I suggest very few normal day-trippers would ever contemplate using Woody Bay as a park and ride station for a trip into Lynton. Any feasible Lynton terminus is simply too high above the town and with constraints on available un-built-up land, is unlikely to be an easy walk to the top station of the cliff railway.

Surely, any visitors to Woody Bay will, as now, be coming for the specific purpose of a day out riding the railway (wherever it goes to); and there will be no requirement for acres of extra parking?

 

Agreed: Woody Bay station is not an obvious place to park one's car for any reason other than to visit and probably ride on the railway

Depending on where the line from Woody Bay eventually extends to in one direction or both, and what facilities exist at any other station(s), it may remain an obvious place to start one's visit and there may be far more people doing so.

 

I think you need to knock on the head once and for all the the L&B (in fact any heritage railway) can ever be a park and ride facility. You would huge subsidies to keep the ticket prices at a park and ride level and you would need significant paid staff to operate the much wider hours thstv would be needed. The Swanage railway tried it and despite £5M of public money, couldn't make it work. It's not going to happen.

 

Depends what you mean by park and ride though. In the purely functional sense, as in, competing with a bus service or whatever, absolutely, it's a non-starter. But plenty of railways do still transport people to somewhere they want to go that isn't the railway. Whitby, Minehead and Broadway spring immediately to mind. People like the idea of their railway trip having a purpose beyond just having a nice ride, even if their method of travel is not the most efficient way to get to their destination.

I don't know the area well, but as the L&B grows it seems to me parking will become a major issue, as it doesn't sound like there's much available anywhere at all to sustain the numbers that would be required to make an enlarged railway sustainable.