The past year has seen the Society make slow but steady progress with its aim to take over and preserve the Signal Box. Our work has been focused on providing a legal and documented basis for this transfer of the Signal Box from Network Rail to ‘The Ferryside Signal Box Preservation Society’.
Administratively in the past twelve months we have been working on drafting Heads of Terms for a leasing agreement with Network Rail. We are awaiting their approval of this document. Key items to confirm with Network Rail include:
Obtaining utilities bills and knowledge of the current business rates, to help gain an idea of potential expenses. Obtain an estimate of the potential charges for legal costs of Network rail. The notice periods and the grounds for this.
Rob Rowbothom at Network Rail has got business clearance for the transfer, but is still awaiting the next step of technical clearance – and is hoping for further feedback.
The latest update we have on the re-signalling project is: – Decommissioning is part of part 2 of the Phase 2 plan and this part has a date of March 2024 assigned to it, though the time scale may move further away. The aim is to have the have the reliability improved. The crossing will be fitted with an ‘Obstacle Detection System ‘Mk2 which is widely in use on the Continent. Scans the area between the gates. In their report Network Rail mentioned that an interested organisation (That’s us) was to take it over on a lease agreement.
Being a listed building, they would be looking at leaving it as intact as possible and if any items needed to be removed, they would look at replacing them with some other equipment.
Our business plan has gone through a number of updates as further information has become available. We have received assistance from The Co-operative Society in drawing up a constitution and contacting the Financial Services Authority.
In the finance area we have opened a Bank Account with Barclays in Carmarthen. There have been a number of donations made to the Society. Diane Cuff has been very generous with donations from the sale of her paintings and the sale of Christmas card she designed incorporating the Signal box. St Ishmaels Community Council has awarded the Society a grant of £500 for which we are very grateful. We are seeking further grants and donations within the local Community. As of 22nd February 2023, we have £1,730.78 in our account.
Membership of the society remains limited; we have not sought to widen the membership until we have more definite information on the lease and a date for our take-over of the Signal box.
At present we have a committee consisting of myself as Chair, Diane Cuff as Secretary, Keith Williams as Treasurer, Community Councillor Paul Stephens as representative of St Ishmaels Community Council, James Greenwell representative of Ferryside Social Enterprise Group (FSEG) and committee members Robert Bamforth and James Morris.
In seeking to inform more people of our efforts we have developed a website at https://ferryside.wales/sos. We have an email address of sos@ferryside.wales and have introduced a QR code to accept donations. A brochure and posters for tourism sites is also in development. Whilst our secretary has designed, produced and sold Christmas cards featuring the signal box.
The Society and it’s aims have been featured both in the National magazine ‘Rail’ and on the website https://railwayworld.net following a visit by Gareth David on 5th November 2022.
David Martin
March 12th, 2023