Another West Somerset story of a lost opportunity and grant funding, for no good reason.

This very public location has been for some years the base for the WSR PWay Department in a very visible location with piles of sleepers old and new, rails and the like.  But buried under all that is a virtually intact country station goods yard, complete with goods shed, crane, loading gauge, and cattle dock.  And there are great stories to tell and the Luttrell family hosting polo on the lawn below Dunster castle with the ponies arriving by train.

In 2017 / 2018 proposals were put together to clear the yard and make in a jewel in the West Somerset Railway crown as a visitor experience and location for restored wagons, telling the tale of goods by rail in years gone by.  Later stages would include convered storage and restoration facilities on the wide formation towards Minehead where the double track used to be.

A project committee was formed with representatives from the relevant organisations.  I was the WSRA rep.  The project plan was agreed and an initial stage scoped which we thought would cost around £100,000.  A toe was put in the grant funding market and with very little difficulty, £20,000 was pledged by a grant-making charity.

But there was a sensitive issue.  From the start we recognized that providing better facilities for the WSR plc P Way department had to be an essential part of the scheme, and ‘going public’ with it had to wait the WSR plc consultation with its staff.  Several viable alternatives were identified – it would not be hard to better the staff facilities at Dunster which can best be described as ‘primitive’.  And the project team awaited the WSR plc doing its bit.

Nothing happened.  The JJP regime was now in place.

I was asked to attend the September 2018 WSR plc Board meeting to talk through the scheme.  I provided a paper.  Two days before the relevant Board meeting I was told that my attendance was postponed to October, and then subsequently cancelled altogether.  Polite enquiries of the WSR plc produced no answer as to why or when I might be invited back.

The WSRA kept the grant-making charity informed that there was a delay all through 2019 and Covid but I assume (as I am no longer a Trustee) that they must know by now that the scheme is a dead duck and their work to approve the grant was wasted.