L&B edges cLoser to BLackmoor gate

Railway acquires a ‘significant section’ of former trackbed.

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About 80% of the route between Woody Bay and Wistlandpound” is now in the hands of the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Trust, according to the L&B’s Press & Publicity Officer Tony Nicholson, thanks to the acquisition of a further 550 yards of trackbed. The latest parcel of land purchased by the L&BR Trust includes a “significant section” of the former narrow gauge railway trackbed, as well as several fields. Located north east of Blackmoor Gate station at Rowley Moor, the 42.3-acre area is an extension of the land already owned at Rowley by the trust, and adds a further third of a mile on the line’s proposed southern extension to Blackmoor and Wistlandpound into the railway’s ownership. The railway is expected to sell on the surplus land or to exchange it for other land that it needs. The L&B is still waiting to hear from the Exmoor National Park Authority regarding its planning application to reinstate four miles of railway and to build a transport interchange and engineering centre at Blackmoor Gate. After saying that a decision would be made within six months of the application being made, in February 2016, the authority asked for additional information and indicated that a decision would be made in ‘spring 2017’. North Devon Council granted planning permission for the further extension from Blackmoor to Wistlandpound on June 15 last year (see SR456). Read more about the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway’s imminent extension to Blackmoor, and its future expansion plans to its namesake towns, on page 82.