Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

That is how I read @35B's original comment too, as a suggestion that the original 'plan' (if there ever was one) for acquiring the necessary site at BR was left to 'run amok' and should have been reined in with stricter oversight - not a suggestion that we should now stop what already exists.

 

Yes, I agree, but what if the deal for someone to take over the Pub from the PLC was to also include other assets owned by the Trust? To me, this all feels like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now.

 

Not really , the railway owns a pub , so make the pub work but keeping the locals happy and working with woody bay to pass customers in between the two attractions.

All this nonsense about selling up already , demolishing it , shutting it down , removing bits are all just unnecessary ramblings of a internet fourm

 

To be fair, I doubt OSHI will really come into its own until the railway has a presence there. Maybe something to factor in to thoughts on the way forward?

 

>>>>Not really , the railway owns a pub , so make the pub work but keeping the locals happy and working with woody bay to pass customers in between the two attractions.....

I can understand why passengers at WB might well want to go on later to the OSI for a meal. It may be less easy to persuade customers at the OSI that they ought to go to WB. Indeed, such is the (apparant loss of) attraction at WB that I'm told that no-one from there bothered to go and advertise themselves at Chelfham for the Railway 200 event....

>>>All this nonsense about selling up already , demolishing it , shutting it down , removing bits are all just unnecessary ramblings of a internet fourm...

So why do you bother to drop in and participate then please?

 

[QUOTE="RailWest, post: 2933384, member: Indeed, such is the (apparant loss of) attraction at WB that I'm told that no-one from there bothered to go and advertise themselves at Chelfham for the Railway 200
[/QUOTE]

Once again Chris you were sadly misinformed.
I consider myself to be a representative of the L&B. I spent the two days at Chelfham taking payments on the card reader, talking to visitors, handing out timetable leaflets and membership application forms and generally extolling the joys to be found at Woody Bay Station.
Keith Vingoe, L&B CIC Director, was at Chelfham all day both days. There were others whose names I either don't know or can't remember.
I appreciate that you are nowadays perhaps unable to visit any of the L&B stations and you have my sympathy.
Nonetheless I feel you don't do the L&B cause any good whatsoever when you simply repeat idle gossip without being certain of reality.
Mike Pearce

 

Once again Chris you were sadly misinformed.
I consider myself to be a representative of the L&B. I spent the two days at Chelfham taking payments on the card reader, talking to visitors, handing out timetable leaflets and membership application forms and generally extolling the joys to be found at Woody Bay Station.
Keith Vingoe, L&B CIC Director, was at Chelfham all day both days. There were others whose names I either don't know or can't remember.
I appreciate that you are nowadays perhaps unable to visit any of the L&B stations and you have my sympathy.
Nonetheless I feel you don't do the L&B cause any good whatsoever when you simply repeat idle gossip without being certain of reality.
Mike Pearce[/QUOTE]

Mike - thank you for the update. I can only comment on the feedback that I have had from other members who were also at Chelfham at the time. As has been said elsewhere "recollections may vary" I'm sure you will appreciate that - at a distance - it is not possible for me to judge whose reports are or are not more worthy of note than others. At least the event appears to have a great success, all credit to those who organised it - I'm just 'gutted' that I was not able to make it there.

 

Firstly, I am NO CAD or computer image editing expert, as can be seen from the attachment (ignore the kink in the blue access road!), but maybe 25-30 years ago, I had a concept of what could be done at Blackmoor, avoiding any issues with planning restrictions within a national Park...

 

Mike - thank you for the update. I can only comment on the feedback that I have had from other members who were also at Chelfham at the time. As has been said elsewhere "recollections may vary" I'm sure you will appreciate that - at a distance - it is not possible for to judge whose reports are or are not more worthy of note than others. At least the event appears to have a great success, all credit to those who organised it - I'm just 'gutted' that I was not able to make it there.[/QUOTE]
Railwest, you are in fact reasonably correct, with all due respect to M.P he is neither a trustee or director of the trust or cic so not a representative that you are talking about, one trustee was helping with car parking on the Saturday whilst another was very present on both days all day long and actually visits whenever he is down, one cic director was present on both days because he was involved with the planning of the event, one other cic director slipped in and out without even bothering to talk to any volunteers,on the Sunday I was at a pinch point of the parking so saw everyone walking in and out, I saw 2 trustees and one cic director visit but not there to offer assistance so only 7 out of 15 could be bothered to visit and only 3 willing to muck in

 

I cant imagine commercial kitchens are very cheap to deal with

The skittles, although not as expensive as a kitchen , still costs money to sort the stage out and put the alley way in .

Along with other work being done in view and out of view of the paying public.

All that work will No doubt affect the profit shown on the books , but it's all work that is needed to future proof the pub , none of that work will need doing next year .

Im sorry we clearly don't see eye to eye on the subject , I clearly don't see eye to eye on this subject with many of you on here but the fact of the matter is , the pub is staying and it's making a profit agaisnt debts and investments back into the building.

I for one , as a local am happy my local is doing well

 

I suspect the plan is to stick it out. On the strength of what has happened so far, the Trust will pay LBBC £160,000 in cash this year (in exchange for shares) so it can satisfy the private lender's loan conditions, and the remaining £59,000 in the next year or so. The Trust's loan with 9 annual repayments of £25,000 can be dealt with like the first one with an issue of shares. LBBC will be relieved of some of its interest payment and left with 5% on the outstanding amount of the Trust's loan. So its profit will go up accordingly. If the roof on the original station building has not been taken off and put back it may have to have an emergency repair, but hopefully the cost of that can come from LBBC's own resources, but inevitably with an effect on the profit. The kitchen equipment referred to is presumably the £24,371 additions in 2024 to Plant and Machinery in the fixed assets. The Trust will end up owning nearly half LBBC.

 

I did not mean to suggest that selling the pub as a going concern is at all a likely prospect. I was responding to

From where the project is now, how does @35B think it could stop? Or did I misunderstand? Did @35B mean that they should have stopped before going through with the purchase?
Good arguments have been advanced both as to why buying the pub was a good idea and as to why it was a bad idea. There are certainly valid concerns about the Trust's governance and decision making processes, but does anyone have any bright ideas about what should happen now other than carry on and hope for the best?

 

Once again Chris you were sadly misinformed.
I consider myself to be a representative of the L&B. I spent the two days at Chelfham taking payments on the card reader, talking to visitors, handing out timetable leaflets and membership application forms and generally extolling the joys to be found at Woody Bay Station.
Keith Vingoe, L&B CIC Director, was at Chelfham all day both days. There were others whose names I either don't know or can't remember.
I appreciate that you are nowadays perhaps unable to visit any of the L&B stations and you have my sympathy.
Nonetheless I feel you don't do the L&B cause any good whatsoever when you simply repeat idle gossip without being certain of reality.
Mike Pearce[/QUOTE]
Not misinformed, I think all involved with Chelfham feel to be representatives of the railway but the reality but neither you or I are directors or trustees and the very fact is apart from K.C, M.W and R.P THERE WAS NO SUPPORT OR REPRESENTATION by any other trustees or directors on site over that weekend supporting Chelfham or promoting their beloved Woody Bay. The chairman of the cic which owns Chelfham was invited to the opening yet couldnt even be bothered to go, the press and publicity director slipped in over the viaduct to get his own photos to use never even had the decency to take 5 minutes talk to Nigel or other volunteers and thank them...and thats all fact

 

... apart from K.C, M.W and R.P THERE WAS NO SUPPORT OR REPRESENTATION by any other trustees or directors on site over that weekend supporting Chelfham or promoting their beloved Woody Bay. [/QUOTE]
Andy
I saw at least one other Trustee / Director at Chelfham during the weekend. There were so many visitors present that both you and I might well have missed seeing others - people look quite different when they are out of context and wearing dark glasses and sun hats!
However life is too short to split hairs. We would simply be detracting from what was a fantastic weekend.
Thanks to Nigel and his team (including you) for all that has been done and is still being done to make Chelfham Station such a polished gem.
Although they won't be able to walk across the viaduct I urge all readers of this forum to pay a visit to Chelfham to see for themselves what has been done. The site is open to visitors every Sunday and Wednesday from 10 am to 4 pm. Satnav EX31 4RP and then follow the sign boards.
Admission is free but all donations will be gratefully accepted!
Mike

 

Yeo Valley Trust’ve started their own lottery as a small fundraising initiative to help maintain properties owned by themselves & Exmoor Associates. 12 quids a year, and you might win …..
https://yvt.org.uk/200club/

 

l should have been clearer; by project, I referred to the attempt to purchase rather than the wider L&B reinstatement. A better analogy might have been to someone attending an auction, and setting a hard ceiling on what they would pay.

We are past the point of no return now; OSI has been purchased and LBBC have the challenge of making it pay.

The challenge for the pub is that to balance the running of a commercial enterprise that is just about trading at break even, and can never plausibly pay back the cost of capital required to setup the business, with the obligations on charity trustees about the best interests of the charity. Those don’t include, and are not allowed to include, subsidising a commercial business.

Setting LBBC up as a separate business was presumably necessary as a way to draw in capital, but it comes at a cost - and part of that cost is that LBBC is not part of L&BRT and its charitable purposes.

At the same time, L&BRT can’t morally do what a normal commercial owner would do, and collapse the business to create a phoenix without the debts, because it would harm both shareholders and its standing in the local community.

That leaves a really tricky catch-22, in which LBBC directors are reliant on a continued flow of funds from L&BRT that L&BRT can’t validly provide.

 

Mitchell @Small Prairie you're apparently wilfully missing the point.

The pub is only (marginally) profitable because it is subsidised by the Trust, which as @Michael B and @35B notes, is not allowed. It is a failing business because Cowling and Miles paid far too much for it and loaded it with debt.

This means that the choices are pretty stark. Short of massively increased profitability just as costs - especially staff costs - are rising, there are two options. Either:

- LBBC fails to service its debts because it can't be bailed out by the Trust, in which case the shareholders are wiped out and the assets sold to satisfy the loan secured against it,

Or

- Someone pumps in a lot of capital to pay off the debts. This could be a shareholder or forgiveness from the lenders, but it cannot be the Trust.

Since massive increases in profitability are unlikely, and as @ross has pointed out, getting a donation of the size required is extremely unlikely (because the B shares are practically worthless now and will be of little or no value for many years, given the investment that OSHI needs which presumably will be funded from the massive profits you're expecting).

So, what do you think we should do?

 

The report being available, subsequent actions would speak for themselves.

( I have been told that if someone asks you to write a report for them, you should ask them for what conclusion they want the report to indicate.)