So Rodney is working with YC to create a Trust that excludes the most vocal/objectionable (in their eyes) members of the original Trust?

There will be a part of most of us that thinks "whatever - if it gets built I don't care." I don't like it though - the Trust existed as a vehicle to deliver this project, and it shouldn't be for the developer to pick and choose how that vehicle is constituted. It stinks.

A question, TRB, IA, Sandal cat, have any of you been invited onto the new trust? Looks a case of divide and conquer.

I know what you mean, but I'd rather the developer decided to work with a Trust of its own making in order to deliver the project than decide not to deliver it at all, which is where we've been for years.

If I'm reading things correctly, the Council have for five years been saying '"nothing to do with us", suddenly it makes the national press and we learn that Mr Box has been negotiating for months behind the scenes.

Sir Rodney Walker as head of the Trust had behind closed doors meetings with the council and the developer, excluding other members of the Trust.

Sir Rodney Walker resigns from the Trust and declares his intention to start a new Trust.

Developers say they will only work with the 'new' trust after five years of working with the 'old' Trust.

Mr Box is in the Wakefield Express giving out positive vibes about the new stadium

So what's changed ? Why does Sir Rodney Walker feel it neccesary to form a 'new' Trust? Why will the Developer only deal with a 'new' Trust? Why the sudden interest from Mr Box and the Council?

As an outsider looking in it all seems a bit 'strange'

Lets see what MC has to say after today's meetings

I guess the issue is on what terms will WT be the anchor tenant of any proposed new development? One has to assume that the original Trust were working towards a deal that would be manageable for WT and allow them to generate revenue from the stadium - will the new Trust have the same aims, or will it have some agenda to help YCP recoup some its costs over the life of the tenancy?

Funny, because I'd rather the developer worked with the existing Trust who we know have Wakefield Trinity at heart than create a new trust that is led by the man who has let them spend the last several years doing nothing. But each to their own I suppose!!

To me it just feels like another delaying tactic from Y.C.

Bringing Agent Walker back into the mix & refusing to deal with original trust is just filibusting I.M.O.

They (Y.C.) have tried ever trick in the trade to wriggle out of their obligations once P.P. was given & due to a lack of commitment from the local authority they have got away with it.

Both Y.C. & W.M.D.C. should both hang their heads in shame.

Good post, it does make you wonder exactly what has gone on in the past and what would change if we "start again", especially as it's still WMDC and Yorkcourt that we are dealing with.

Perhaps tha land at NM is so valuable as commercial land that they dont want to have to put a stadium on there, assuming of course that Youkcourt ever intended to do anything and weren't just using the new ground as a Trojan Horse.

But they won't - because they have none; what's happened with this project is SOP in the developers world, and LA's are powerless to manage them.

This is from an article in the Guardian a couple of years ago:

"Bankers have faced our collective wrath, but what about developers? The economy goes in fickle booms and busts, cycling merrily through bubbles and crises, but cities, built in concrete and steel, generally stay put. What we are making now, we will all have to live with for a very long time. The iniquities of the banking crash have been intricately unpicked, but the wilful destruction of the places where we live and work remains something of a mystery. We may rant and rage against ugly additions to the skyline, but what of the mechanisms that are allowing it to happen? How did it come to this?

The principal reason can be traced to the fact that awarding planning permission in the UK comes down to a Faustian pact. If the devil is in the detail, then the detail is Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, a clause which formalised “planning gain”, making it in the local authorities’ interests to allow schemes to balloon beyond all reason, in the hope of creaming off the fat of developers’ profits for the public good.

Introduced as a negotiable levy on new development, Section 106 agreements entail a financial contribution to the local authority, intended to be spent on offsetting the effects of the scheme on the local area. The impact of a hundred new homes might be mitigated by money for extra school places, or traffic calming measures. In practice, since council budgets have been so viciously slashed, Section 106 has become a primary means of funding essential public services, from social housing to public parks, health centres to highways, schools to play areas. The bigger the scheme, the fatter the bounty, leading to a situation not far from legalised bribery – or extortion, depending on which side of the bargain you are on. Vastly inflated density and a few extra storeys on a tower can be politically justified as being in the public interest, if it means a handful of trees will be planted on the street."

This is much smaller scale, but it frames the relationship between developer and LPA, and makes very clear which party holds the whip hand.

I agree with you as a point of principle, but if it doesn't get us the stadium that way, there's no point continuing down that path. If the new set-up achieves nothing, we're no worse off, because we've got nothing so far anyway. The goal should be the endpoint, stadium delivery, not who gets to share the journey.

One thing I have learned to do over the last few years is trust Michael Carter's judgement, and I trust him not to agree something that is to the detriment of the club. I'm happy to stick with that mindset.

If the club is to be a part of the decision making process along side this new trust, could the club not employ the members of the original trust who are not invited to the new trust?

Agree.

Looking at it from another angle, I wonder whether if we have a Labour government in the next couple of years (reasonable chance of it happening) we could try and get a couple of million from Corbyn's £250 billion infrastructure investment fund. Would only be a drop in the ocean from something that big, would solve a long standing problem and gain Labour some very goodwill in what are now a couple of marginal constituencies and investing in community sports facilities to tackle things like child obesity would be an excellent use of those funds IMO.