Transport Preservation Trust – Beith Transport Collection  Statement – 01 July 2008

Following a meeting of the trustees of the Transport Preservation Trust, operators of the Beith Transport Collection we regret to announce the resignation of the board of trustees. 

After much discussion the trustees decided that “enough was enough”   and the time had come to call it a day with regard to the development of the Beith project. As many people will know 2008 has been a difficult year for the Transport Preservation Trust, the Beith site has been subject to planning problems and the TPT has been subject to inaccurate allegations made to OSCR (Office of the Scottish Charities Regulator).  Since then many of these problems have been overcome however a considerable amount of work still required to be done to enable us to achieve our objective of full public opening with open day events. Added to this poor attendance at members meetings, lack of support from members onsite with the development of the project and last but not least the increasing amount of time and effort spent by the trustees to collect storage fees owed by some members.  In short too much work having to be carried out by too few people and regrettably things showed no sign of improving.

The majority of vehicles will remain at the Beith site.  It will now be a private collection mostly consisting of Michael Roulston’s vehicles with invited guests also continuing to store their vehicles. The collection will still be able to accept prearranged visits from interested parties and the restoration of the vehicles in the collection will still progress, many former TPT members have already indicated they will continue to help with the vehicles.

In light of the above changes, there will be no further open weekends held at Beith including the event scheduled for August 2008. The TPT will no longer be accepting any applications for membership with immediate effect however as mentioned above anyone genuinely interested in viewing the collection should make contact as follows:

Bus & Coach Developments                       Tel: 0845 120 8091                                       Robert James House                                  Fax: 0845 120 8092                     Willowyard Road                                                                                                   Beith, KA15 1JG

Finally the Board of Trustees would like to thank everyone who has supported the Beith project in any way over the past few years.