THE town council in Llandrindod Wells no longer maintains its signal box after National Rail would not allow it to carry out refurbishment works.

This came to light after Llandrindod East/West County Councillor and former Mayor Jon Williams spoke out about the signal box, which is also a museum, in a community group on Facebook.

“As someone who tried their hardest to get them to spend the money repairing it,” Mr Williams said, “I’m very sad to see how much time and money they’ve used finding a reason not to repair it, when the money was there to do the job.

“Interestingly, they have been taking money from the residents of the town, via their precept, for years to maintain the signal box. Yet this money will now go into their reserves, instead of being used for what it was intended for. Is this legal? Who knows. But Whether you like it or not the signal box was given to the town council in 1990 to maintain for the future, along with grant money that they could now be liable to repay. What a waste of public money.”

Llandrindod Wells Town Council responded to Mr Williams’ social media post by issuing a public statement on Monday, June 8.

They said: “The council was approached by an individual who was keen to take over the signal box privately and the council agreed to look into this.

“The clerk contacted the council’s solicitors to ensure the due diligence was being paid to this matter as the asset register stated that the key was handed over in Aug 1990 and there was no evidence within the files of the ownership of the signal box.

“After a few months the solicitors reported that the land along the whole of the platform had been registered at the Land registry as the property of Network Rail. The clerk expressed concerns about the ownership of the signal box and the solicitor has confirmed that despite this building being on the council’s asset register since 1990 the town council does not have, and never did have, any legal interest whatsoever in the signal box.”

In March, the council decided to remove the signal box museum from the asset register and discharge any responsibility for the maintenance of the building based on legal advice.

“After many email and contact Network Rail refused to give permission for the works due to a discrepancy of 20cm. The local contractor and scaffolding engineers re-worked the report and the council re-submitted it. Once again, works were refused. This left the council in a difficult situation."