Hornby's financial updates to the Stock Market

[Coryton]

Do Hornby own the moulds? If there is uncertainty over ownership, a potential buyout or takeover could become unstuck very quickly. 

 

I've never seen it suggested that they don't, unlike Mainline/Palitoy who didn't own their own tooling, which is how it passed to Kader ultimately to become Bachmann.

[Ozexpatriate]

Even if the ship is sinking we don't know that know for a fact if it is the model railway part that is losing them money.

The problem at the moment is we, as in hornbys consumers, don't know where the monies are being lost from.

... nobody knows how the model railway businesses are performing except Hornby PLC and Hornby Hobbies Ltd.

 

Hornby PLC are the organisation in trouble – they are the company who have borrowed heavily to invest (ahem...) in the Group's reorganisation, etc. All they do is take money from each of the businesses (and those who lend it to them) and spend it. They effectively earn nothing themselves. The individual businesses within the PLC are performing OK, but not great, with the possible exception of Scalextric, who are tanking from what I read yesterday.

As you say it is Hornby Group which is in trouble but we don't know what has taken them there.  They talk about their January promotions not achieving expected (i.e. budgetted) revenue levels but apart from maybe Toy Fair orders what on earth does a toy & model manufacturer expect to make a lot of money selling in the immediate post Christmas period?  A raft of Collet coaches and the odd totally new loco or two would undoubtedly bring in good sales but knocking out old trainsets or Scalextric sets is hardly going to wow the marketplace but in the general toy trade it is (unless things have changed drastically) the flattest time of the calendar.

In my opinion this conversation strikes at the heart of the present issue. Hornby was recovering. They secured an extra £15M which in turn gave them a four-year banking covenant. Yet for some reason after a 'good' December, they are claiming poor January sales as their reason for breaking their banking covenants. This is inconceivable to me. January should have been totally predictable.

 

Understandably we have a bit of a blind spot for anything but railways when we think of Hornby.

 

Where did the money go? Why did they choose to spend more than earnings? Why were they (literally) banking on a big January, when they know better than we do that January sales are terrible in the toy industry? (Plus we know there were no new British railway releases in January.) I think it is worth noting that the new Scalextric wireless controllers were available in January. Perhaps there was "irrational exuberance*" that these would fly from the shelves. It wouldn't surprise me if this is a connection. Did they spend a lot of money on developing new toy lines introduced at the toy fair?

 

It doesn't seem to me that the British railway part of the business was the culprit here. Even the European brands seem to be doing better than they have. It feels like some other management brainwave was at work here and someone doubled down on a risky project rather than gradually returning the company to productivity.

 

* A quote used by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to describe the 'dot-com bubble'.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[Jaggzuk]

Most of hornbys income is from men aged between 45-105 I'd wager, not through new entrants. I go to toys r us a lot as I have two kids - sadly the pile of train sets doesn't diminish much. And I know of NO kids my kids know that have or want a train set , and I bet 99.9% have never heard of Hornby.

 

I think people enter this hobby through older relatives with an interest or through having an interest in the real size trains of today ( which is why contemporary stuff is still popular ). Other than that I'm afraid you won't compete with ' minecraft ' on the iPad.

 

It's not 1980 anymore I'm afraid.

 

Sure the 40+ could be seen as the big spenders, but the reason 40+ get in to modelling is that we are more likely to be getting 'back' in to modelling.  We are of the generation of pre-computers and we did modelling as a child hobby, be it railways, aircraft, cars etc,  So some of 40+ now have more time, money etc. as the kids start to grow up and leave home.  We need a hobby.

 

Sure there is much to grab a child’s attention these day, in fact too much probably.  But it is down to us parents with an interest in model railways to share it with our kids/grandkids and hopefully show the virtues of modelling' as a hobby/past-time.  And in turn set the next modelling generation on the right course.

 

But lets look at Hornby as a whole, my 5 year old son thoroughly enjoyed making one of the new Airfix ‘Lego styled’ kits at Christmas; the Spitfire looked just superb!, I think that was a fantastic development for the range and moves it on.  But why stop there, Lego now has a Minecraft range, we can control our trains using Smartphone, so the cross-over in to today modern tech and gaming is there for the exploitation and keep the younger generation interested.  Take Lego they always produce new ranges to tie in with big block buster films.  So the likes of Hornby and others need to diversify and be creative to keep their brand alive, especially in a child’s mind.  Mine DO know who Hornby is and that is because I have shown them; the 5 year old knows the different between a Red box and a Blue box

 

As for not know any other kids who are into trains, well that should not a blanket situation I feel, I live in a small village and there is at least one other family with a model trainset and trains are quite often run on each other loops of track.  Maybe we are just lucky, but the seed is hopefully sown.

 

No it' not 1980 anymore, but boy do I wish there was more BR Blue being sold in the Red box and Blue box ranges!!  I would buy a lot more stock if there was.  The manufactures need to know who is coming into the hobby with spare cash, the 70’s and 80’s child and that was a great time to be a diesel/electric Train Spotter.  Now I want as a 40+ to model a layout full of BR Blue and Sectorisation stock.

 

I only hope things are not a brick wall at the end of the tunnel.

[papagolfjuliet]

Given the number factory codes that appear on Hornby boxes, even if the do own the tooling rather than just the CAD the tooling is spread out over different factories and maybe even regions of China. Each manufacturer will have its own agreement with Hornby, which could have to be re-negotiated should Hornby fail. If I remember correctly the tooling for the B17 was done by one company, then when Hornby tried to move it elsewhere they had to start from scratch? So I guess the tooling will be tied to the factory.

 

 

Previously he tooling from Hornby / Meccano / Triang were in the UK when they changed hands, and Lima / Rivarossi and maybe Dapol tooling were all kept on once place under one owner. And the commonality of parts made things easier - fewer motor designs, less duplication of tooling, assuming each factory that produces rolling stock currently make their own wheels and couplings.

 

Wasn't the brief disappearance of the Thomas range a result of difficulties in recovering some of the tools from a Chinese contractor? I have a feeling too that some more recent toolings may also have been lost. There has been no sign of the Stanier tank, the Q1, or the Scot and Patriot in the range for a few years.

[Sasquatch]

Forgive me if I'm repeating myself.

 

There's a huge market for British prototype model trains in the UK and beyond, which no doubt makes OO railways Hornbys bread and butter.

So why on earth have they released years worth of Southern stuff followed by LMS, then GW and now we're seeing LNER loco releases coming at us sideway like heavy rain in a hurricane. Regardless of what the polls say I think their biggest mistake has been not to provide products across the board.

I for one don't have the money for all these LNER locomotives and stock which I'd love to have (B1,O1,L1,B17,J15,K1,P1,D20,A4 set,Q6,B12). A J50 for Christmas would have been nice(I believe they didn't reach the shops until January)!

94 pounds for the N1 which still has the old Airfix tooling???

I have also noticed that 40 year old Airfix kits seem to be sitting on the shelves in dozens when the market for them is in serious decline. Lets face it we all built them as kids but the youngsters these days aren't allowed near glue!

 

This all adds up to bad marketing!

 

The emails from Hornby Really scrape the bottom of the barrel as far as bargins are concerned. Any one on here buy a train set lately?

 

I'm not surprised they're in trouble.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Sasquatch

[andyman7]

My 7 year old loves his model railway trains....

 

 

And my two don't

 

We cannot look at ourselves and they everything is alright - there will be plenty of families where there are no trains past Thomas and more and more of them as each year passes.

 

We have to be realistic, we're a dying breed.

The point I was trying to make was that it is not true that 'kids aren't interested in trains anymore' Many kids aren't but some kids are, and a properly focused business can serve this market. Hornby have a unique access to this market, Bachmann, Dapol, DJM etc can all serve the keen modeller and collector but Hornby has the opportunity to serve that market, and also get some economy of scale by also selling train sets and accessories.

 

The business isn't all bad but it has been terribly unfocused at having the right products in the right boxes at the right prices for the right markets. A typical example is the 'Javelin', a budget priced version of the Southeastern Highspeed train that is perfect for my son - it looks good and runs well and is suitable for his age and capability. The original trainset sold out a few years back leaving a glut of centre coaches with nothing to attach to. Last year another batch of the sets were made, but the extra coaches are now out of stock, so the opportunity to extend the set is compromised. 

[Metr0Land]

But making chocolate is almost fully automated anyway so the Cadbury jobs lost were mostly unskilled except for those who maintained the plant. 

 

Depending on what a new owner did already, the admin staff might be on shaky ground but Hornby don't actually make anything, they design and develop the tools for others to do it for them, a pretty specialised task within in a pretty specialised industry.  

 

A buyer could carry on making the existing range with very few of the existing staff but not if they wanted to continue introducing new models.

 

John

I quoted the Cadbury example because they threw out 'management' in all its aspects ie product design, development etc which were very much in the UK until recently. The production could have been anywhere, though in fact was the UK. All Kraft seems to have wanted was their product in Cadbury packets. Hornby could easily be the same.

[Coryton]

 

The business isn't all bad but it has been terribly unfocused at having the right products in the right boxes at the right prices for the right markets. A typical example is the 'Javelin', a budget priced version of the Southeastern Highspeed train that is perfect for my son - it looks good and runs well and is suitable for his age and capability. The original trainset sold out a few years back leaving a glut of centre coaches with nothing to attach to. Last year another batch of the sets were made, but the extra coaches are now out of stock, so the opportunity to extend the set is compromised. 

 

I do wonder if Hornby couldn't work a bit better at adding "play value" to their train sets. 

 

In my opinion, the best starter set has a siding, and a mixed train with some open trucks. You can then do a bit of shunting, have somewhere for your imaginary passengers to go, and open trucks you can put loads in.

 

On the other hand with a Eurostar and an oval of track all you can do is go round and round. And you can't even couple anything else to it apart from extra dedicated Eurostar coaches so to expand it you need another locomotive. 

 

Of course a set of points pushes the cost of a train set up, but for some reason Hawkin's Bazaar (and before that Modelzone) seem to have a near permanent sale on the "West Coast Highlander" set or similar reduced to £50 (from a rather implausible RRP of £130), which gives you four trucks and a siding, and a lot more besides (but no coach for passenger trains, so that's an extra £15 for a 4-wheeler...)

[Coryton]

I quoted the Cadbury example because they threw out 'management' in all its aspects ie product design, development etc which were very much in the UK until recently. The production could have been anywhere, though in fact was the UK. All Kraft seems to have wanted was their product in Cadbury packets. Hornby could easily be the same.

 

I think that's the worst scenario - the brand is bought up and used for something cheap and nasty, and the tooling festers in Chinese factories. Let's all hope it doesn't come to that. I imagine it would give Bachmann an incentive to expand on their Bachmann Junior range if it did.

[autocoach]

Where did the money go? 

I have no inside knowledge but I suspect new management vanity costs of the new ERP system and the move to an newer more posh headquarters along with disposal of Margate property.  

 

If you do not have real or realistic in house ERP expertise, you can get taken to the cleaners by the "consultants". It is easy to burn through millions in the ERP install and conversion costs.  

 

If you were able to obtain a management accounting P&L I would expect the culprit is in the G&A section before allocation to business /product line sectors.

Edited February 12, 2016 by autocoach

[Wheatley]

I have also noticed that 40 year old Airfix kits seem to be sitting on the shelves in dozens

 

Not in any model shops I've been in recently, they're sitting in post-2013 type 16 red boxes, alongside a lot of new tool kits. Other new tool kits have sold out very quickly. I'm aware Sasquatch was referring to the age of the mould, not the age of the box, but my point is it's all newish stock and not old stuff that's been sitting there for years.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Wheatley

[Richard Scott]

Will the immediate result be mass dumping of product at bargain prices to recoup as much as possible, thinking along the lines of Lima twenty years back and more recently Heljan. If this is the case I feel sorry for the traders/ dealers who have bought stock at standard trade prices, these will take a lot longer to sell. I hope this doesn't lead to more model shops/traders closing their doors.

 

I agree that letting the bean counters have control of just about everything isnt always the best policy. There needs to be people involved who have a genuine interest within the hobby/business. The bigwigs will always walk into another well paid job. Its the bread and butter shop floor workers who will struggle.

 

Just wish I was the 33.3m winner who came forward the other week.

[robmcg]

...

As you say it is Hornby Group which is in trouble but we don't know what has taken them there.  They talk about their January promotions not achieving expected (i.e. budgetted) revenue levels but apart from maybe Toy Fair orders what on earth does a toy & model manufacturer expect to make a lot of money selling in the immediate post Christmas period?  A raft of Collet coaches and the odd totally new loco or two would undoubtedly bring in good sales but knocking out old trainsets or Scalextric sets is hardly going to wow the marketplace but in the general toy trade it is (unless things have changed drastically) the flattest time of the calendar.

 

I doubt we'll ever learn what has gone wrong, whether it was due to disorganisation, sheer bad management, or ludicrous revenue forecasts, or even delayed delivery of product but whatever the cause we can but hope that something worthwhile survives it.

 

Is it possible that the profit warning and suggestion of possible breach of banking covenants (default?) has burst a bubble and share prices have nose-dived in a more dramatic way than expected by the directors? Commonly a profit warning brings a drop of 10% in shareprices when a company has otherwise sound fundamentals, but 60% or more suggests a general lack of confidence in the company, I think the suggestion that Hornby may need more bank money does not sit well in the current banking environment.

That said, Hornby have some profitable businesses and they know how to produce brilliant models, albeit their sales methods have lately been unkind to shop retailers.

 

I'm not a betting man but would suggest a likelihood of Hornby management just carrying on with current plans but with less speed and expansion, or alternatively a banking and management arrangement which might see the break up of the company, which would not necessarily be the end of the good bits of the company.

 

Just my thoughts. I am no expert.  And like a few others I have read every page of this interesting thread. 

 

edit;  and I have doubts about the returns on high-detail models like King and S15 where costs of production are high and sales are low to moderate, a factor in any level of investor confidence.

Edited February 12, 2016 by robmcg

[robmcg]

Will the immediate result be mass dumping of product at bargain prices to recoup as much as possible, thinking along the lines of Lima twenty years back and more recently Heljan. If this is the case I feel sorry for the traders/ dealers who have bought stock at standard trade prices, these will take a lot longer to sell. I hope this doesn't lead to more model shops/traders closing their doors.

 

I agree that letting the bean counters have control of just about everything isnt always the best policy. There needs to be people involved who have a genuine interest within the hobby/business. The bigwigs will always walk into another well paid job. Its the bread and butter shop floor workers who will struggle.

 

Just wish I was the 33.3m winner who came forward the other week.

 

I don't think Hornby have large amounts of unsold stock. They have already shifted a lot of it with their own on line sales (and hurt a lot of retailers)

[jjb1970]

On bean counters, the problem does not appear to be that Hornby are controlled by bean counters, the problem strikes me as being that they aren't controlled by bean counters. We do not know what has happened yet but thoughts are that there has been a major failure to manage their invoicing, stock and distribution and apparent problems rolling out a new ERP. Those are not problems that need a rail enthusiast to fix, they're problems that need a hard headed manager who understands business process and a good bean counter to fix.

[Mike Storey]

And my two don't

 

We cannot look at ourselves and they everything is alright - there will be plenty of families where there are no trains past Thomas and more and more of them as each year passes.

 

We have to be realistic, we're a dying breed.

 

The imminent demise of our hobby has been forecast for at least 45 years. When I was at grammar school (I mention grammar, because that meant, in those days, a higher than average income level for the parents), in the late 60's and early 70's, out of a year of 90 pupils, there were only two of us interested in trains. The rest of the three forms took the proverbial out of us. The school model railway society, out of a school population of c.600, numbered 12 pupils. The RM and MRC mags were full of next to sweet FA in terms of product. Beatties were still going strong as were several other famous names, but my local store, in Southgate, was clearly replacing much of its railway shelf room with non-railway products. Various "irreplaceable" names went bust every few years and re-appeared under new management, but little really changed for a decade or two. RTR products remained very basic and we feigned a kind of happiness.

 

Than along came Bachmann, and the rest is history.

 

We have lived with a relatively long period of stability, since perhaps the late 90's, and have become complacent. In that time, many computer companies have come and gone, and there appears to be little loyalty in the mobile phone and tablet market. Who would have thought Nokia and Blackberry would be knocking at St Peter's gate only five or so years ago?

 

Hornby's problems are serious, but they are nothing new. It isn't armageddon. Just look at Warley There was nothing like that even 30 years ago. Look at how many new entrants we have now. This hobby is greater than we think - I still keep my passion fairly secret from British acquaintances as I am fed up being the brunt of their mirth. It's just having another one of its blips.

 

One thing I have noticed in France is that the average age of enthusiasts, at MRE's and in mags, is far lower than the UK, and they mostly look and dress like normal human beans. (If you don't know what I mean, look around you in the average UK model show.) There is not the stigma there is in the UK. I have no idea why, as the hobby is much smaller and poorly supported, as are the few heritage railways. Ain't life queer?

[Ozexpatriate]

Children are still interested, but not as interested as in the period between the 60s and 80s - I would hazard that toy trains began to wane in popularity amongst children as the numbers of child trainspotters also tailed off.

 

Wall Street Journal article, its not just a problem here:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/end-of-the-line-for-model-trains-aging-hobbyists-trundle-on-1455157546?mod=e2fb 

The WSJ article refers to retirement homes with their own model railway. That sounds so attractive, until you start to imagine all the arguments about whether it should be OO, EM or O gauge, DCC or analogue, etc. etc.

Headlines in the Wall Street Journal.

 

 

End of the Line for Model Trains? Aging Hobbyists Trundle On

Industry struggles to find new platforms for once popular pastime

The WSJ article falls into the trap of focusing the business discussion on Lionel - as synonymous a brand with the uninitiated in the US for model railroads as Hornby is with similar people for model railways in Britain.  Few serious modellers use Lionel. O gauge modellers are more likely to be MTH fans. Most North American modelling is of course H0 with a strong following in N.

 

The article fails in the respect that it does not interview modern business leaders in model railroading like people at Walthers or Athearn or the editorial staff at Model Railroader. Had they done so, they would have a totally different perspective that even though there are long term concerns the hobby is very vibrant right now in North America and we're not all retired people - just ask Jason Shron of Rapido.

 

We know the aging population of model railway fans is a backdrop to Hornby's business climate. The climate is well understood and wasn't something new this January. The issue with Hornby has nothing to do with aging hobbyists.

 

It is related to management projections for January, why they spent more than was prudent and on what.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

If you were able to obtain a management accounting P&L I would expect the culprit is in the G&A section before allocation to business /product line sectors.

Ken, think there may well be a litany of sins hidden underneath the G&A totals and any one-time write offs in Hornby's 2015/1016 annual report.

 

On bean counters, the problem does not appear to be that Hornby are controlled by bean counters, the problem strikes me as being that they aren't controlled by bean counters.

I'd make some references to making bets, but they might be too pointed.

[woodenhead]

I don't think we are at an imminent point of collapse of model railways, there are still many people old enough to either have been lifelong modellers or returning to modelling and with a reasonably sized wallet to make purchases.

 

The problem is the next generation of modellers, people need something to spark them into railways be it friends or relatives with an interest or working on the railway. Once being a trainspotter became an embarrassment then model railways lost its feeder.

 

The crowds we see at stations today are not the crowds we use to see in the early 80s.

 

People once thought compact disc was the future of storage and the suddenly it was streaming, cloud and wireless. Things can change very quickly in this world today and business can be caught napping.

 

Hornby as a brand will get through this and I hope they continue with the high quality outputs we've seen recently but we shouldn't think it will last forever.

Edited February 12, 2016 by woodenhead

[andyman7]

I have also noticed that 40 year old Airfix kits seem to be sitting on the shelves in dozens when the market for them is in serious decline. 

.

 

 

Not in any model shops I've been in recently, they're sitting in post-2013 type 16 red boxes, alongside a lot of new tool kits. Other new tool kits have sold out very quickly. I'm aware Sasquatch was referring to the age of the mould, not the age of the box, but my point is it's all newish stock and not old stuff that's been sitting there for years.

Indeed - for many years Airfix traded on a legendary name but an increasingly outdated tooling bank of models but under Hornby's ownership they have invested heavily and their key models (Spitfires, Red Arrows, Lancaster etc) are all now top rate modern tooling - and it sells, see Trains 4U's post.

 

Across their brands Hornby have a lot of good models - it is how they are utilising them that is the problem.

[Mike Storey]

 

 

I have no inside knowledge but I suspect new management vanity costs of the new ERP system and the move to an newer more posh headquarters along with disposal of Margate property.  

 

If you do not have real or realistic in house ERP expertise, you can get taken to the cleaners by the "consultants". It is easy to burn through millions in the ERP install and conversion costs.  

 

If you were able to obtain a management accounting P&L I would expect the culprit is in the G&A section before allocation to business /product line sectors.

 

 

ERP (or something like it) is an essential part of the logistics in a modern distribution network, especially using a third party. It can save huge amounts of overhead otherwise wasted to back room tasks. That was not a bad decision. Management of the implementation may be more guilty - SAP and others make their fortunes from changes to their standard systems. That may be the crux. You are right in that a lack of experience or expertise may have caused this, but looking at the expertise the board had available from the white goods industry, I would be surprised.

 

The new Sandwich site is much cheaper than the old Margate site, helped by sweeteners from Thanet DC and Kent CC to stay in the area. Last time I was at Margate (early January) the building had not been sold and the shop/visitor centre was still in full swing. The plans to move this to the seafront at Ramsgate, to an old building in the historic port area, on which renovations are only just starting, is holding up the potential big boost to their balance sheet. I would assume the gain from sale of the Margate site will have been written into their financial forecast, but we don't know in what financial year. I see no mention of delay to this in their explanation of the poor actuals. However, the Margate site must be worth a fortune, given the retail and housing expansion happening right next to it. It is very plausible that they can steer through this phase on the back of the potential from that, unless the new banking deal had already factored that in. I suspect it did, but that means that, if the worst comes to the worst, they are sitting on a little gold mine.

[Mike Storey]

The crowds we see at stations today are not the crowds we use to see in the early 80s.

 

 

 

Absolutely. These days they are actually fare paying passengers, fousands-of-em.

[Ron Ron Ron]

...... Just look at Warley There was nothing like that even 30 years ago. Look at how many new entrants we have now. This hobby is greater than we think.....

 

Indeed, there has been massive growth in the commercial side of the hobby.

It has never been as big and there are obviously lots of "customers" who are feeding it.

Even old stalwarts like Peco, have seen a huge increase in turnover in just the last 5 or 6 years.

 

All that growth is set against a background where the toy train market slumped a couple of decades ago and is even smaller today.

May I suggest people should stop obsessing about kiddie's toy train sets and whether children play with toy trains or not.

We are talking here about the "grown up's" model train hobby and by and large, the two things have never been more separate and unrelated.

 

 

.....I still keep my passion fairly secret from British acquaintances as I am fed up being the brunt of their mirth. It's just having another one of its blips.

 

One thing I have noticed in France is that the average age of enthusiasts, at MRE's and in mags, is far lower than the UK, and they mostly look and dress like normal human beans. (If you don't know what I mean, look around you in the average UK model show.) There is not the stigma there is in the UK. I have no idea why, as the hobby is much smaller and poorly supported, as are the few heritage railways. Ain't life queer?

No wonder the hobby is seen by most people as sad, or pathetic old men, playing with children's toys and even worst, thinking it's a serious pursuit.

 

Rather than obsessing on what are now marginal toy products aimed at children, which in the main will not lead to many kids growing up as train nuts or becoming participants in the model railway hobby, maybe the emphasis should be on making the hobby an attractive and enticing interest for "grown-ups", if that's not an oxymoron for adults playing with toys.

 

 

 

.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Ron Ron Ron

[ruggedpeak]

Let's get down to brass tacks. Let's look at their website. Select the "Diesel & Electric Locomotives" section in their shop.

 

http://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/shop/locomotives/diesel-electric-locomotives.html

 

Whatever system I use to look at it, it comes up with the "Recommended" listing order of models over 5 pages. The first 6 locos listed are mostly discounted long established poor sellers. Not what you put first. The rest of the page is entirely items out of stock.

Bizarre coincidence or has someone been reading the forum? When I checked just now this section has been re-arranged with the stuff in stock now on the 1st page, followed by Pre-Orders then the OOS/Sold Out.   

[pete55]

 However, the Margate site must be worth a fortune, given the retail and housing expansion happening right next to it........if the worst comes to the worst, they are sitting on a little gold mine.

 

Maybe not worth as much as you suggest.

A Hornby rep, when in my local shop, told us they had been refused planning permission for housing on the site as it is zoned as industrial, and the planning authority wasn't budging on that.