Introducing The Yeo Valley Trust

The Yeo Valley Trust was established in 2009 by a small group of Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Trust members principally to protect the integrity of the trackbed owned by Exmoor Associates and to raise charitable funds to support the volunteers who were managing it.

Exmoor Associates Ltd, a Private Company Limited by Shares, was established in 2002 with the single objective of securing the trackbed of the abandoned Lynton & Barnstaple narrow-gauge railway, auctioned off piecemeal by the Southern Railway in 1935. Exmoor Associates is now a Community Interest Company committed to pursuing the same objective but only in the Yeo Valley (Southern Sector) between Barnstaple and the Wistlandpound Reservoir, at which point the railway route was severed and flooded by the reservoir’s construction in 1957.

After the purchase of Snapper Halt by EA, the YVT objectives were expanded to include fundraising to support EA in its trackbed purchasing programme. The subsequent successful restoration of the Halt is just one of the growing achievements of the EA/YVT partnership and has raised awareness within the local community and the wider railway preservation movement.

The recent purchase of Bratton Fleming Station following a very successful appeal by EA Directors led to a decision by the Trustees to raise the profile of the Trust. The Charity now has much broader objectives that enable greater support for Exmoor Associates CIC in its quest to acquire, preserve and restore all the surviving infrastructure of the L&B in the Southern Sector. Transformation into a working railway will become increasingly possible but remains a tempting vision for the moment.

At present, the L&BRT provides no financial support for trackbed acquisition or infrastructure restoration in the Southern Sector, although its CIC owns Chelfham Station and a recently-acquired trackbed section immediately North of Bratton Fleming Station. However, the YVT constitution permits financial support for the management and further restoration of these L&BR Trust-owned assets should our donors request this.

The YVT was reconstituted in early 2021 and registered with HMRC for Gift-aid, Legacies, etc, but under Charity Commission Rules could not be registered with them until annual income exceeded £5k. Once this figure was exceeded, thanks to the remarkable response from supporters to requests for funding, the necessary, and lengthy, registration process could begin. The Charitable Objects of the Trust were adjusted to the satisfaction of the Charity Commission themselves and to that of the Trustees and the Trust was officially registered in February 2023 with Registration No. 1202037

The YVT is now very much in business to secure charitable funding for some exciting developments in our railway’s progression in the Yeo Valley.