https://www.totalrl.com/stadium-fund-ap ... d-trinity/ 2 million approved, that's a very good start. Notice interestingly how the money is slowly morphing from 'community projects' to 'stadium upgrades'.

https://www.totalrl.com/stadium-fund-ap ... d-trinity/ 2 million approved, that's a very good start. Notice interestingly how the money is slowly morphing from 'community projects' to 'stadium upgrades'.

Just another example of the Metro tail wagging the City dog.
£6million provides funding equal to £18/head for the population of Wakefield Met and as the City accounts for 1/3 of the population, Wakefield's £2million still equates to £18/head.
Under this system, Featherstone gets £131/head and Castleford £45/head.
Yet the City of Wakefield excludes Ossett, Horbury, Walton, Crofton, Sharlston, Normanton and many villages spread over a vast tract of land whose funding has gone to Fev & Cas. All these seem to be disenfranchised by this bizarre distribution but is would seem to be the presumption that Wakefield will include them in their share.

Not sure that’s correct.

Sports funding comes under WMDC as far as I'm aware, The boundaries don't matter as Parish Councils etc do not fund WMDC community sports. The money has very clearly been allocated to RL. It has been divided between the three pro clubs to provide sport and cultural support for the entire district,

Walton, Crofton and Sharlstone are clearly suburbs of Wakefield and have very little autonomy, they are villages in name only. You have more of a case with Ossett and Horbury but none the less they are part of WMDC. You seem to have forgotten Ponterfact, I assume that Fev will see to that, whilst Normanton and another one you forgot Knottinglycould be covered by Cas. And let's not forget Hemsworth!

Either way, your argument is flawed IMO because WMDC is the whole district and not just Wakefield or Cas or Fev but in the eyes of the Council, these three business units offer the best solutions to offering the whole community some resources.

Finally, let's not be naive, this money is for stadium improvement allowing the council to excuse itself from the 106 debacle. I don't know tbh but I doubt WMDC had 6 million laying about, so where do you think the money came from?

That's how I read it anyway.

Well I'll take the two and am grateful for it, I think the council could easily have spent the money elsewhere,and had we started splitting hairs about who has how much, they probably would have done..
If things go as planned it's a big slice of what is needed we just need everything else now to fall in place!

Could this be used to just pay back the loan so the ground is officially the clubs?

Went on the planning portal today and they have resubmitted everything again with a covering letter identifying issues brought up from the first application and how they have rectified the issues. Looks very promising! I did notice on the re submitted drawings that the hospitality on the new stand looks the same as before. You would have thought if they were altering it would have been a good opportunity to put the new drawings in

Pointless as it's needed to improve the ground which should enable the debt to be serviced.

Doesn’t make any difference as it’s all the same pot.
So you’d just have to borrow the money from somewhere else.

In truth owing money for the ground to the council is as good as owning it. It’s like the best land Lord in the world. Even if we can’t pay it’s hard to imagine the council kicking us out, they would just re-schedule or even write off the loan.

I’d rather the council effectively own the ground than some of the owners in the past, it’s like a safeguard.

We could use the money in part for the new pitch which could be argued is for the benefit of the community.

Yes, I’ve just had a look, the only elevation for new stand is the one seen from Doncaster Road. The front view of the stand as you say, is unchanged from the first drawing submitted. Perhaps it would seem that the suggestion that the hospitality section would run full length of the stand will not now happen, unless there’s no planning requirement for internal alterations to be submitted.

The money is not new, its already accounted for in the budget.

Indeed, £2M from the council was already included in the budget, but then again they promised that amount for the NM stadium too.

The way I see it, the council's press release was sufficiently vague but specifically included the prospect of stadium upgrades. The bottom line though is that this is money to support community work in the district which otherwise the council would have to provide, possibly less efficiently. It also says "up to" £2M, which suggests a proposal will be needed from each club outlining what they intend to spend it on and how that will increase community involvement.

It seems this is already covered at BV by the addition of the 4g pitch and conversion of the current clubhouse for community use.

Not sure what, if anything, needs to be spent on PO to meet SL standards, but any remainder can be spent directly on supporting their community role.

WR seems more complicated. Clearly they need to spend significant amounts on the stadium if they are to stay there for the foreseeable future in order to maintain SL status. I guess they'll need to work on getting funds released from Axiom, but the clock is ticking and BV has taken nearly 3 years already before anything has happened. Can they get stuff done in 2 years? I think they have the biggest challenge.

Is there a date for December planning meeting?

16th December

Spot on.

You don’t need to be a genius to know where it came from or where it’s going.

This is all smoke and mirrors but as a Trin fan I don’t care.

The bottom line seems to be that the club dug in its heals and the council got a new leadership that has attempted to salvage what it can from the 106.

There really is a book in this saga but I suspect it will be a fair few years before the mechanisms by which all this has occurred will become obvious.

All I can say is the club couldn’t build this stand and the council didn’t have 6 million quid laying around. Some very heavy political movements have taken place.

It’s worth noting how neither Cas nor Fev have made any noises regarding the BV upgrade since it was announced and you’d think they would.

So far we seem to have a plan Baldrick.