Rail enthusiasts ‘breaching rules’
Saturday 24th January 2009, 1:10PM GMT.
Steam enthusiasts hoping to reopen a heritage railway in Oswestry have been accused of breaching planning rules by allowing people to sleep overnight at their site and carrying out work in an area containing great crested newts.
An investigation has been launched into the activities of members of the Cambrian Railways Trust at their Llynclys base.
The trust has planning permission to build a carriage shed, construct additional railway sidings and develop associated landscaping.
But complaints have been made about the work the volunteers have been carrying out and they are being investigated by Oswestry Borough Council planning enforcement officers.
Enforcement officer Steve Evans has written to Llanyblodwel Parish Council to outline the nature of the complaints.
Parish councillors are to discuss Mr Evans’s letter at their meeting on Thursday.
Mr Evans said he has written to the Cambrian Railways Trust and its planning agent requesting information to assist in his investigations.
Henry Thomas, from the Cambrian Railways Trust, said the trust would be making a full response to the complaints in a letter to the borough council.
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I’m sure the group will be very happy to accommodate the newts…surely it’s all a balance…or is this a nimby objection?
Orchids next?
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jobsworth is alive and well in oswestry. and where did the railway navvies sleep in the 1830′s and 1840′s
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Great crested newts have more rights than unpaid volunteers by the looks of it. Welcome to the real world!!
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i am sure the railway workers on a busy night in the pubs can be newt like, crested, great or not!
i cannot beleive this is a serious story. advance cambrian railways advance
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I cant believe what I am reading!! Dear Shropshire, star please can I have the one minute of my life back while I was reading this story….
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Glad see the council are being kept in work!
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The great crested newt is an endanged species but every time anybody puts a spade in the ground around here up they pop. Not that rare are they.
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Even rarer than a great creasted newt – a local authority taking action!
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* UK economy in depths of recession,
* Banks brought to near bankruptcy,
* Uk base bank rate lowest since Bank of England formed
* Homes being reposessed
* Jobs being lost in the Private sector at rapid rate
* Value of UK pound against dollar and Euro falling to its lowest…
and so on,
And what do the councillors think is of vital importance ?
Well – sleeping overnight and disturbing great crested newts? ..
Was this story meant for April 1st??
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Is this local battle going to go to the bitter end?
It sounds like one lot didn’t think of the railway heritage first and keep trying to undermine those who did.. Really, that’s what it looks like from years of reports on the spite that has been thrown around.
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typical EU rules stopping britain being great again, its the foreigners who love the newts so much, so lets ship them over there, the french would eat them anyway
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when the cambrian railways society and the cambrian railway society merge it will benefit the newts and the cambrian railways
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what if a newt slept on the tracks, and i mean right on the rail. all the councils have employed headless chickens who cant even get a mars bar out of a vending machine with a £1 coin!
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I’m sure an enviromental study was undertaken before planning was granted including newts welfare. As for sleeping over, these are unpaid volunteers who want the railway up and running for the benifit of the area,perhaps this nimby should volunteer his services too,it might just give him a proper purpose in life.
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The newts are not really the point – see past your own drum-beating. Its local politics, just like so many other examples when someone sees something that makes someone else look good and not them. (probably!).
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european rules no doubt, diktats from brussels, i say get out of this union, ignore these rules like the greeks do
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All the Society has to do is declare themselves Travellers and bingo no problems! seriously like Asteric Dotcom says with all the traumatic events unfolding in the UK this must be a wind up?
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Unbelieveable report concerning these well meaning volunteer enthusiasts, and that – “they are being investigated by Oswestry Borough Council planning enforcement officers.”
Haven’t these well paid council people got proper jobs to do – other than wasting our hard earned council taxes?
Kr, a Very angry tax payer!
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Oh my soul! what has happened to my lovely old County of Shropshire! You have “great crested louts” in Oswestry Town and carpetbaggers complaining about people with a valuable hobby that keeps them off the streets, renovating a past icon of a better era? I shall die of shame that I didn’t stay to fight the changes.
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