The river Calder is the eastely boundry and the M1 motorway is the westery one. However there is only limited green belt land there. It is mainly old pit stacks and the area where the stadium is proposed is totaly pit stacks. Granted there is some agricultural land there but there is also a lot of derelict land. I have lived in that area for years and I have never seen any rare birds or animals, there are some foxes on there but nothing out of the ordinary.

What people are failing to grasp, I think, is that as a result of the new LDF and the landscaping works carried out by YCP there will be a NET GAIN of 1% in green belt land across the District.

Are they failing to grasp it Clan, or are they wilfully refusing to acknowledge it?

More the latter, as their whole argument is based around greenbelt, even though they don’t mind greenbelt elsewhere being built upon.

TBF the Yorkscourt stuff has no impact on the Green Belt - it is the addition of other sites in the distict, including colliery sites at Fryston / Wheldale, Frickley and Rabbit Ings (Monkton) that will see a nett increase in Green Belt.

This is 3-dimensional thinking all linked between the needs of the district, planning rules and the spaces available.

from the tweets it sounds like LCC are trying their damned hardest to stop this going ahead and clutching every possible straw. Sounds like there's more to it than their so called worries over green belt land

"Should he choose to use the two letter word, no professional teams will exist in Wakefield for the public of Wakefield to follow in this great city of ours. Crime rates will soar current jobs will be lost as well as new,the national health bill will soar with all sorts of health issues connected with the loss of having something for our children and childrens children to aspire to. In reality it is DO or DIE."

No it won't be that bad.

Even LCC must realise how weak their case is. It just sounds like they are objecting because it's the wrong side of the M62 for them. Politics or whatever their reasons, the fact they are willing to spend their tax payers money on trying to stop 2000 jobs being created outside of their district while chopping 600 jobs and cutting back on services must really be setting themselves up for the next elections.

You could tell their case is weak listening to them cross examine today.
He dotted around trying pick fault with John Francis statements and spent so much time on silly arguments with no point, they seem to just be picking fault to see if they can get a rise and a mistake.

Did the Inspector give any indication that he was aware of the weakness of their arguments and more importantly, did the YC rep do a good job in defence?

At the end of the morning session the inspector looked very weary of the scattered and nit picking nature of the LCCs questioning.
Before allowing the day to lapse into an afternoon session he directly asked the LCC barrister if his next line of enquiry was actually relevant.

He was sat with his head slumped onto his right hand looking a little bit bemused and a little bit annoyed.

Sounds promising; I'm guessing that the Inspector will be more than used to coming up against vexatious objections that are politically motivated, so he'll be able to see LCC's intervention for what it is.

Had a chit chat with a professional planner who is an expert in projects like Wakefields and Castlefords. Out of the two proposed developments,the Wakefield project is more feasable unlike Castlefords. I dont wish to go into detail or mention any names but i suspect RW IS AWARE of this and there fore joined sides with LCC and wrote a letter in panic fuelled with fear of his own club surviving.