BRPS Members notices & documents

Bluebell Railway Restructuring Proposals

Many will know already that discussions have been going on over the past few months, in a joint BRPS/PLC Working Group that I chair, about possible changes to the corporate structure of the railway. That work was presented to a joint meeting of the Trustees/Directors/Governors of the BRPS/PLC/Trust in early December and both the BRPS and PLC Boards have now given the go- ahead to begin the detailed development and implementation of these proposals.

The proposals can only go forward with the formal support of both BRPS members and PLC shareholders. So this short article is the beginning of a process to introduce these plans to the volunteers and supporters of the railway, to explain why we believe that changes are needed and what the benefits will be, in order to gain that support.

There are two main reasons for change that we have identified: the need to improve the financial position of the railway and the need to streamline its decision making and management structures. On the first point, successive recent annual accounts show that we make regular losses on a scale that is not sustainable. We believe that a substantial reduction in that loss would come from making ourselves eligible to receive Gift Aid on parts of our income, which means the operating entity becoming charitable. Being charitable would also give us a significant reduction in our business rates. On the second point, we currently have three Boards that each has to discuss many of the same issues, which leads to delay and possibly confusion over where decision-making responsibility actually lies. There is also a practical problem in finding sufficient able and willing people to fill all the roles in this structure.

So what are we proposing?

To reduce the complexity of the legal processes involved, we are not going to make any change to the structure of the Trust for the moment; that’s something we can revisit later if we wish. Our plans focus only on the Society and the PLC, which are currently Companies Limited by Guarantee and by Shares respectively. The endpoint we are seeking to reach is for these two entities to be combined as a single Charitable Community Benefit Society (CCBS) that would own and operate the railway. Getting from where we are now to that endpoint is a multistep process that we believe will take about 18 months, though some benefits would start to accrue before the process was finished. Once completed, the CCBS membership would comprise the current BRPS members and the current PLC shareholders on an equal voting basis.

Many other preserved railways have already taken a path to becoming charitable operating entities – we are actually rather slow to do this, so the fundamentals of what preserved railways are about definitely fit with being charitable. Indeed, the Objectives statements in the Company/Society paperwork of these already charitable preserved railways describe all of the same activities that Bluebell has always been about. Some other railways have become CCBSs while others have become charitable companies; because of our own particular starting point, the CCBS route is the best one for us.

There will be lots more detailed information about these plans, timescales etc as well as updates on progress with implementation in future editions of The Bluebell Times and Bluebell News. We also intend to hold open forums at the railway in the coming months for people to ask questions and to find out more.

Keith Leppard, BRPS Acting Vice Chairman