I imagine the council will eventually just throw their hands up and say 'sorry, our fault' (probably some blanket statement, not Box obviously) and blame it on some error in not seeing the loopholes in the original agreement. Then say legally there's nothing to stop Yorkcourt with other applications and just carry on letting them do what they wish. The council gets the blame and labeled inept which we already know, and nothing changes...

Human error is always a good one, and strangely enough the solicitor for WMDC resigned a few weeks since, scapegoat anyone?

I tend to agree - these letters, whilst they sound authoritative, are often just statements of intent; what this does do however, quite aside from the legal complexities, is make YC's attitude and intentions entirely clear - as predicted, they do not intend to contribute a brass farthing to a community stadium, and will instead continue to obfuscate and circumvent the agreement until the site is built-out.

WMDC's response will be interesting - I would imagine they'll desperately be looking for some kind of compromise, as if this goes fully legal, several parties will have skeletons that they'd much rather stayed firmly in the closet - not least Mr Box and his cohorts.

If the solicitor who resigned ever gets subpoenaed, who knows just what will come out.

There must be a Deep throat in this saga , my best guess would be Jeffries and her relationship with Rodders

That's an image I can do without

On a more serious note – I tend to agree with Vastman. They are a shonky operators chancing their arm – MC, the trust etc may well feel the time is right for the legal route and I’d back that.

This lumps huge pressure on the council leadership now if the national press show a wider interest. I fancy Box and co-consipirators on the council will jump soon sadly they’ll be taking nice public pensions with them when some might suggest a bit of prison time was more appropriate.

Spot on! I think and hope we are reaching a point where the gloves come off.

I would suggest that Yorkcourt have only ever seen the Stadium plan as the tool that opened the land for development. A stadium and the problems that it brings to a commercial site that's targeted at warehousing/storage would not sit well with the developer or their tenants, every few weeks and influx of traffic and pedestrians impeding the day to day business activities of the rent paying tenants. A stadium could well put off prospective commercial tenants. My view is that a weak maybe even inept council allowed it to develop and I would suggest the council leadership could be seen in much the same way.


Yorkcourt may use every obstacle possible to deter any stadium development at Newmarket because I do believe that the stadium is not part of their business plan.


An unlikely scenario but a deal that keeps Trinity at a redeveloped Belle Vue brokered between the Council, Yorkcourt, 88M and the Club would be the grown up solution rather than all parties coughing up funds for legal action. Such a scenario relies on people doing the decent thing Mr Carter and Mr Brereton I have absolute faith in, Manni at 88M I cannot say, clearly a shrewd businessman hopefully he can see a redeveloped BV as a good investment, sadly Wakefield Council and Yorkcourt would need a serious shift in attitude. Lets hope that the last two eventually see that allowing this to drag on further is damaging for all concerned.


These are my personal views and opinions.


They are submitted against the background of years of flannel, mainly from the Council and Yorkcourt with the most pathetic and valueless comment coming out on a regular basis being 'we are working hard to solve this' perhaps if they stopped working hard and tried working efficiently they could actually achieve something. Next time they trot out this standby sound bite ask them to explain what they are actually doing, my guess you'll get a bit more flannel but worth doing putting them on the spot

Nah ! Quite honestly I think she is bloody clueless and knows less about the wrong doings at Newmarket than most on here.


The smart money thinks the original legal advice was also from Gaitleys and a similar letter was drafted and the council accepted it 100% on face value and buckled under. They never had the gumption to take their own legal advice from a skilled independent lawyer and just rolled over for their tummies to be tickled.

The whole debacle has been an indication of what a greedy, unethical creed and system large-scale capitalism is, and the behaviour of the likes of RM Walker, Yorkcourt & 88M highlight just what was at one time termed: "The uaccceptable face of Capitalism". These men (?) have just lined their pockets at the expense of the citizens of Wakefield with the so-called socialist council leader being no better. They should all be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and Walker should be relieved of his "Freeman of the City" award RIGHT NOW!!!

Whilst trawling the web for info on Yorkcourt and others involved in the sorry saga of Newmarket I came across an article on Insider Media written by Stephen Farrell, Digital Staff Writer all about the Kitwave aka Clarks deal for a new distribution hub having been settled. Nowhere in the article does it mention 'subject to planning permission' does Stephen, Kitwave, Henry Boot and the wonderful chaps at Yorkcourt know something we don't. The article all reads very positive about how wonderful the deal is, published in July this year wishful thinking or something deeper!

We worked WITH Andrew when they wanted our assistance!

Agree. You can have whatever Political beliefs you want but where business is concerned there are plenty of businessmen from both sides of the political spectrum around, that have good strong morals and ethics, who also mage to make money while maintaining them. it's just that those that are shysters get more noticed than those of us that aren't.

Like you say if this development had been in the hands of a bigger developer who was all about, getting planning, building the place out, making money and moving onto their next project, we wouldn't be talking about this now.