From what I ear , the only hope we have achieving anything (the bear minimum) is for M/C to carry out his threat of judicial review. Pickles , Box ( and his planners) Mackie (and his lawyers ) have screwed us big & proper.

As said there is no legal obligation from Yorkcourt's POV to do anything so I'm inclined to expect nada from them. They quietly screwed everyone over the 106 agreement so why would they pay up millions when they don't have to. Moral obligations don't get very far in a developers world.

Sorry but you are actually wrong there. They are legally obliged in the sense that although they don't have to build the stadium at NM they can't actually do anything with the land without the consent of the Trust. Basically IF the Trust appealed that they are in breach of the original agreement and went to court they would win and the site would remain forever undeveloped - not what a developer wants. They have to develop a sports facility on the land fit for the use of WTRLFC and the community or offer an alternative - that's not changed. What has changed is that because of a change of use clause which was missed by all they no longer have to build a stadium before they complete the rest of the development or that's how I understood it after the last SWAG meeting.

In reality though all that creates is two sets of losers.

What YC want to do is extricate themselves from the agreement as cheaply as possible which is what all these meetings are about. We won't get NM imho or anything like the money it would have cost to build NM but whatever we get may be enough to get us started at BV.

My guess and it's pure speculation is that we will regain BV and the Superbowl and perhaps 1-2 million to start us off. In other word a 3-4 million pound package. Way short of NM and a bargain IMHO for YC and tbh we will have been lucky if we get it.

The other option and the worst one IMHO is that Yorkcourt just go bust and the land just gets past on and we lose track of it and it lays empty for years and we get nothing and knowing our luck .

Wrong, nothing to do with MC. It's Rodney Walker and the Trust who would take any legal action if required. People need to get their heads around the fact that it's the Wakefield Sports Trust who will fund, design and own the facility and it is the Trust and not the Club to whom the perceived screwing has been done.

Box and the Council are partly responsible for not spotting the clause and can be held accountable to a degree.

Absolutely nothing to do with Pickles or his ministry.

The labour leader was ousted by the torys and lib dems, now the minority torys lead the council, with other opposition party's, living in Halifax always thought the council lacking

The labour leader was ousted by the torys and lib dems, now the minority torys lead the council, with other opposition party's, living in Halifax always thought the council lacking

Given that Yorkcourt are extremely short of pots to do their proverbials in then the likelihood of getting anything out of them other than constant BS is slim to none. Newmarket is dead. An upgrade of Belle Vue? Highly unlikely to be anything of real significance without somehow acquiring some other significant outside funding from somewhere, which is unlikely at this stage i would imagine. It certainly won't be from the council, that ship has sailed.

There was the 'built out' clause, so theoretically the developer could build a percentage of the site just short of the trigger point and never have to build the stadium. The rest of the land could then just lie idle for a few years until it was all forgotten about and an application vould be put in the remove the clause. It would then likely be developed for industrial units.

Now I'm no expert on property develop but as I understand it from the numerous meetings I've been to it's nowhere near as simple as you make out so I suspect some educated guessing on your part.

Anyway it's nothing to do with pots to pee in for YC. It as far as I can tell works like this. YC wanted the development to work as we did to think they didn't is stupid. But it hasn't and now YC need a plan B which they rather wisely wrote in.

So now they can get their money back though not as much as hoped on a smaller development much more quickly. The leverage the trust holds is the ability to make a large chunk of NM dead real estate. What YC want is to keep that land and free it of restrictions and when NM is up and running and successful as I'm sure it will be sell it on at the top of the market - easy money and costing YC far less than any alternatives.

What Rodney Walker and YC have to come to an arrangement over is what the Trust walking away from NM is worth - and that is quite literally the million dollar question.

Of course YC will need to borrow the money because they won't have the cash themselves that is for certain and where you are probably 100% correct. It's a case of whether they can and whether it's worth it for them and on that none of us know fore sure - but it's a good investment for someone that's for sure. It's like selling anything, if only one person wants it they have the advantage, if more than one are really interested then the seller has the whip hand and again I really don't know the situation and neither do you.

It's worth noting that the revamp of BV was not actually pushed by YC it was an idea floated by a few that found it's way into the Express and forced everyones hand - Rodney Walker as we all know is hugely experienced in these matter so one hope he knows what he is doing.

NM by the way isn't dead and never has been and this is the myth. The problem is nobody can see a way in the current economic climate where it can actually happen for at least 6 years if not more - that is the problem and thus the chances of it being built are about 1%. How this came to be is another matter.

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Sixtogo, good post



However I think its now well documented that MC and his board always wanted NM as the preferred option. When the truth all comes out I think we will find the seeds of a cheaper development back at Belle Vue were sown by other person(s).
MC being a realist obviously believed NM was never going to happen but had no alternative than to salvage what he could and go along with the Belle Vue option.

My apologies, got carried away. I realise that a significant amount of funding for the Hepworth was from grants, but there was also a decent amount from WMDC including the money from the sale of Yeadon Airport. I am very happy with the profile the facility gives the City, but then I am also proud of the profile that a certain RL club has given as well!

The point is that they can find funds when they want to, which suggest they don't want to with regard to a stadium that is supposedly largely funded from a development they led us to because they had already failed to provide the funds for a stadium they were going to build.

From fully built stadium to zero, at the stage, this is where we are with our beloved council. Add that to the failure to ensure that the 106 provided the safeguards to provide the funding for the stadium and I think we can see a general level of incompetence that others can only aspire to.

Our stadium, including even what we have now, is under threat. We are working on it and we may need your support to help protect it. More meetings are planned.

As for Yorkcourt, well....

Nothing is inked in, nothing written out at this time.

That was also my point when I made the initial comparison. I like you am in admiration of the Hepworth, it was just unfortunate that it was ideal example to highlight the council duplicity. I hope Bren can forgive us but realise we were well meaning