THE long-running battle for control of West Somerset Railway Association took another turn this week.

The WSRA could be forced to hold an extraordinary meeting regarding the future of its leadership after more than 300 reform group members signed a petition.

An Independent Expert Panel report published in December recommended that the six trustees on the board step down due to mismanagement, but after little movement so far a petition was started by the WSRA reform group calling for an emergency meeting, which received the required 300 signatures in just a matter of days.

However the trustees may be attempting to pre-empt the general meeting by holding a meeting of their own on Monday, February 15 where the future leadership of the association will be on the agenda.

Frank Courtenay, acting chairman of West Somerset Railway Association, released a statement on Sunday, January 31 raising serious concerns about the governance of the association, the apparent lack of financial planning, and the actions and intentions of company secretary Susan Kaufman and the original six trustees.

In the statement Mr Courtenay said he had been instructed not to take any further action

The WSRA Reform Group believe that failure to call an eGM within 14 days of the official request submitted on January 28 would be a breach of company law for which the company secretary and the six dissenting trustees would be personally liable.

Both the West Somerset Railway PLC and Steam Railway Trust say they support the call by the Reform Group for an extraordinary general meeting to be held at an 'early date' to ensure that the key recommendations of the Coombes report can be agreed and implemented.

The trustees in question are Peter Chidzey, David Williams, Nick Nicholls, Ian Aldridge, Nigel Bruce Robertson and Paul Johnson.

The IEP report published in December concluded that the association leadership 'lacks clarity of purpose and has no strategy to meet its own ill-defined objectives', and that the charity as a whole is unsustainable in its current form and structure.