The original Masbury Appeal was time-limited simply because that was the original offer and aim - to raise £500,000 in three months in a window of opportunity whilst the station was kept off the market.
We did raise £80,000 which was magnificent and equated to around £7,500 a week! This gave us the leverage to request a joint working arrangement with the prospective new owner, who I and several others met in the meeting coach at Midsomer Norton in the autumn.
Sadly this promising buyer dropped out, and the whole scheme has been in limbo since. Now the station is not only on the market but the price has been dropped by £100,000!
So we have a second bite at this! I have been corresponding with John Baxter at Midsomer Norton about this and we've basically agreed that a rather different approach needs to be made to move this along. The first decision was to appoint one person to oversee the whole process. The second is to drop the time limitation and to set it up like a normal appeal ie it will run until we've secured the site, either wholly or by a written agreement with the owner. So the money raised will cover purchase of the whole site or, again, give leverage to secure land ownership and/or running rights to allow us to operate, eventually, a train service to a reopened station at Masbury.
The game is back on! More news very soon.
Anyone who would like to help with this stand alone project please email me on leysiner@aol.com giving me your ideas!
