The Trust's lawyers Walton & Co sent this letter to Wakefield MDC planning department yesterday. The Trust are delighted that Walton & Co have agreed to act for the Trust.

rlhttps://twitter.com/WakefieldTrust/status/1059741362583691264rl

Legal arguments can be complicated but at it very heart this is about morals, intent and promises made. Newcold did have to be separate stand alone application, because of it's height, it was taller than was allowed for under the outline application. It is our opinion, as you all know, that the fact they also did not want it to count towards the trigger point was not made clear to both the members and the public and in actual fact, we all thought it was until it was too late. However, this application for Kitwave DOES NOT need to be separate application, there is not any reasonable reason why this should not be submitted under the outline and count towards the trigger value.

The fact and choice that Yorkcourt, Henry Boot & Kitwave have made is clearly an attempt to circumvent and undermine the whole planning process and the only reason they are doing that is to avoid doing what they promised they were going to do, build a stadium. They have got what they want and now they are sticking two fingers up and the citizens of Wakefield and supporters of Trinity and laughing in their faces. Wakefield Council members, and most importantly the leadership (are you listening Mr Box?), need to stand up and say enough is enough. We will not let you make and then break promises and pockets £100's of millions of pounds at the expense of our citizens!

Gloves are off, good - when do you need some money?

I'm not on Twitter and can't work out how to make the letter big enough to read.
Can you post another link, IA ??

Try this direct link to the PDF file FIL

rlhttps://drive.google.com/open?id

Spot on...cheers IA

Excellent news. Glad the fight has started in ernest.

Brilliant thanks iA

Double post

Great to see our legal representation has now been put forward IA! Im looking forward to see how the subject is addressed by the Planning Committee.

One thing i would like to ask, and this is not a criticism or dig in anyway, just a genuine question. You say that morals, intent and promises are at the heart of our legal argument but do you believe we have a good legal argument? The letter from Yorkcourts representatives strongly argue there is no legal case for them to answer. Im worried the council may see this as an easy route of escape. They have already shown that morals and promises mean very little to them...

Great question and happy to, sort of, answer.

If I can rephrase slightly, I think it will help. We haven't got to the stage where we need to publicly set-out a legal argument which will be complicated and might not be easy for people to understand (including us). If and when we get there, we will deal with that as clearly and concisely as we can There is no point showing our hand now (for hopefully obvious reasons) because prior to that we have a planning committee made up of local politicians who need to make a decision, and they are not (bless them) lawyers and judges! I won't lie to you, this situation as far as us and Walton and Co are aware, is totally unique. A developer(s) and their client seeking to exploit one public inquiry to avoid doing what they promised in another public inquiry hasn't really happened before! We also need to genuinely see what happens next, because legal arguments and positions will have to shift and adapt depending on whether the planning committee pass or rejects the application... assuming of course the Developers don't produce a new S106 agreement in the mean time! Unlikely it would seem, but another possibility.

We have been advised by Walton & Co to go all out to get the WMDC planning committee to turn down this application. They have also said that in their vast experience of the local stage of the planning process that local members generally don't take too well to lawyers lecturing them on points of planning law. At this stage this application is about a group or local elected members deciding whether they pass or reject this application. They can either take the correct and moral decision and quite simply turn down this application, or they can allow two developers & their client to crap all over them and the citizens of Wakefield while laughing all the way to the bank counting even more money, because their already considerable profit just got £15m bigger!

Well I think its a great letter but I am not too optimistic regarding a response. The reason being ,I have been looking at the list of councillors on the planning committee. I will list them by their respective wards then make a comment afterwards.

Hemsworth Chair
Normanton Dep chair
Airedale/Fryston Dep chair
Knottingley
knottingley

Wakefield Rural....Tory


Altofts/whitwood
Pontefract South
Pontefract South

Wakefield West.....Labour

Ossett.....Tory

Featherstone
Castleford Central
Normanton
South Elmsall

Stanley....Labour


There are only 2 tory representitives and both from Wakefield so thats a plus.
The other two Wakefield representitives from Wakefield are both labour.
The rest of them are all labour and I bet the vast majority don't give two hoots about our City.

I do not know what the out come would be but if you ever wanted to see a list of councillors who is not representitive of our City then this is it.
If they are controlled by Box I can't say, but look where the vast majority come from and leave it up to you to decide.
Last but not least, there are around at least 9 wards (3 councillors each) that one could argue represent Wakefield, So why is there such a negative anti wakefield representation on the planning process, surely such a large committee should be representitive of the overall district, not just the 'Bad Lands' of Box.

I meant the planning committee ???