Advanced ticket revenue blow for Llangollen trust

THE LLANGOLLEN Railway Trust (LRT) has been advised that £30,000 placed in a separate bank account by the directors of the now defunct Llangollen Railway Plc, intended to cover the advanced sales of tickets and experiences, will have to be made available to the general body of creditors.

LRT finance director Phil Freeth said: “We are very disappointed with this outcome and wish to extend our sincere apologies to all those customers of Llangollen Railway Plc who will lose money over this. At the same time, we also have to acknowledge the administrators are only doing their job as the law dictates.”

A statement from the LRT stated that the issue had been exacerbated in that the money concerned had been placed into a separate account shortly before Llangollen Railway Plc appointed receivers and the account that the funds were transferred from was already an overdrawn account. The LRT has now stated that, going forward, it has created a Sales in Advance reserve in its accounts, which will show in the company’s audited accounts each year. Mr Freeth said: “This will cover advance sales at any one time and, hopefully, this early step will prevent any similar recurrence should the trust fall into financial difficulties in the future.”