I heard a rumour that it was along the lines of something similar to a magistrates court fine.........£5 per week for the next 300 years

You should copy that into an email to WE as a response to her letter. Hopefully they'll print it next week

"Long history of top class sport..."

Who was the last top class sportsman to come out of Wakefield?

As has already been said it is not about rolling over it is about being realistic. Yorkcourt have never had any intention of building us a stadium there and never will whether it is taken to court or not. They'll do right up to what they can get away with and walk away, surely you can see that? Take a look at their financials, they are skint, they will not cut 12 million+ into any profits its too much and not worth it for them. The ONLY card we hold is that plot of designated land at Newmarket which they can't build on but no doubt would like to cover with industrial units, minus probably a five a side pitch or two to cover the planning permission. It is the ONLY bargaining chip available.
So a question. If you threaten them with court action and they come to you and say, look we are not building you a stadium at Newmarket even if we lose the case, we will just walk away from the development leaving you with nothing but here is 'x' amount of money to purchase Belle Vue and the superbowl if you give up the land, what do you do? Play high risk that they are bluffing and won't give the site up, with a very real chance that the club dies if they do, or take the money and maintain a club in the hope that sometime in the future we can either do the old place up properly or use it as a down payment elsewhere? Its a tough call to make.
It's probably a pointless argument as the offer may never come anyway and there may be no choice to make in the end but i just can't see them ever building a stadium at Newmarket whatever happens at court. But take them there and it is curtains for the club as any goodwill will be gone. I do fully understand your point of us getting what was promised and the thought of us in superleague for ever more is one i would truely love but it seems thats not going to happen so for me it has to be a negotiated decision made around a table with us just trying to get the best deal they will offer and not in court which for me that will be a costly waste of time as it will not produce a positive result anyway.

Regarding the council i have no love for them but i think they know that if Yorkcourt are 'forced' to build the stadium then they will just walk away and the land will be empty for ever and a day. It doesn't earn the council any money that way does it so thats why they won't lean on them like they should. As with eveything in life money talks. It's going to have to be some kind of compromise or nothing at all.

Great idea Avenger....just done it

The bottom line is why the hell did WMDC allow Newcold to be built as a separate entity to the Newmarket site.
We can understand the need for a new application, due to the change in size (particularly the height) BUT, why should this have not counted towards the 60,000m2,
which would have triggered the stadium build ??
Nobody from WMDC has or appears willing to answer this.
They have hidden behind confidentiality clauses but it goes directly against the SoS instructions and appears to break the criteria set out in the S106.

Someone at WMDC and the planning dept. know the answer but NOBODY will say why, meanwhile the people of Wakefield are getting shafted.

Because, as Clan alluded to previously.....they either didn't read and understand what they were approving, in which case they were negligent, or the scary version involves clandestine meetings and plain brown envelopes (allegedly !!)

You would have thought it would have counted even on a seperate application, unless that is some kind of get out clause. It is going to take a very skilled (and probably expensive!) lawyer to pick the bones out of it and even with a win a new stadium is probably a pipe dream. It does though stop them getting rich off the back of it, although the flip side is the area loses out on jobs and revenue to other areas which it desperately needs.

Not quite but you are along the right lines.

Don't think anyone can.

FIL is on the right lines. Very much a case of jam tomorrow and not acceptable to the Stadium Trust.

Councillor Jeffreys has very much aligned herself to the line spouted by Box, that the delivery of Community Facilities is nothing to do with them. Neither of them deserve any support when they next come up for election if that is the attitude they have.

The development of Newmarket is a planning process, from conception, to the Public Enquiry, to the Planning Approval and the mitigating factors (ie the S106).
WMDC want to cherry pick which bit they get involved in, when really it should all be overseen by their planning dept to ensure the citizens of Wakefield get what has been promised. To deny any invovlement in that is a dereliction of duty.

Jeffreys states that "the bottom line is that that the council is not in the business of providing rugby league stadiums" - well news for you, we are not asking you to, we just want you to ensure that your planners do not allow developers to trample all over the citizens of Wakefield by allowing them to ignore PLANNING commitments.

Can you email the WE with this? All BOX's soliders read the letters page religously and hate it when some FACTS are thrown at them...

The Labour Party doesn't come out of any of this very well do they?
Party of the working man, yet Rugby League is a sporting mans game.

Very ignorant of them to act like this!

Sorry if I have missed this somewhere but where are the stadium trusts figureheads in all this, I'm thinking Sir Rodney Walker and David Hinchliffe? Are they no longer longer involved if so why not? Or if they are why are they not using their considerable influence to try and push things along? I would have thought that to make any headway they have to be involved and in a big way as they know how the system works. Please don't take this as a pop at the rest of the guys involved, they are doing some good hard yards here but why is the chairman or the former MP around election time not making the statements and leaning on the politicians? Does Sir Rodney still have his own political ambitions and not want to be involved? He always fancied the house of Lords but that might have changed after all this time. If he could get himself in there then it could be a boon to the process. Is David still involved?

Both are still involved and operating actively in their own circles to further our cause. I have no complaint about either of them or their efforts, nor would I wish for them to be involved in our public campaign at this time.

Does the SoS Officialy know what's gone on here?

Is he aware that the S106 Disagregation clause has been disregarded by the WMDC Planning Department

Can someone clarify once and for all, is this blatant disregard illegal?

Have we sought to find out who took the decision to pass the Newcold planning application, who instructed the Planning Officer to pass it with no questions asked was Box involved, was it his decision?

Heads should roll for this

Contact with the SoS will happen after the GE.

Has anything illegal happened, we don't fully know and will be asking others more qualified that question. Has anything immoral happened, yes, without any doubt from this side.

The final part of the question is very complicated and involves many elements, but the planning officer can only recommend - it is the planning committee who have the final say. Now whether they knew all the details about the consequences of what they were doing.....?

WMDC had a perfect opportunity to gain fantastic facilities, much needed sporting facilities, for the City of Wakefield for a very minimal cost of £2m pounds - and its unlikely this would have needed to be in the form of cash. The S106 was designed as a 'softener' for allowing the re-designation and development of an area of land.
Why have they let this go? - they knew right from the start that it would never come off. That is why they have discreetly distanced themselves from the S106 right from the start, not being a signatory to it so they later have the current cop out that they are now shoving in front of us, but allowing, and positively going along with the sham that this development would come off - their name is all over it, even though they never added their signature to it. Thereby, conning everyone that this was a realistic proposal for providing desperately need facilities for the citizens of Wakefield. Out of this, they got approval for a development that would have had a serious struggle without the support that the community facilities and the stadium in particular provided to the application. WMDC and its Labour leaders duped us, knowing that it didn't stand a chance in hell of coming off. That s a pretty mean and cynical way to treat your constituents - shameful in fact.
The fact that a development business will come out of this pretty well just adds to the disgrace and give the whole shambolic scenario a very nasty smell.
I doubt very much that the same attitude will prevail should the opportunity to provide similar community facilities in Castleford arise. There was never any way that a new stadium would be permitted in Wakefield, before Castleford with the current cabal in charge.
Lets face it - the Wakefield district will only get one new stadium and that will be in Castleford.

I have always thought there would only ever be one stadium built in the area, this delay has enabled the Cas scheme to come up on the rails and if/when the s.o.s. passes it after the election then they will overtake us and disappear off into the distance. And that will be the final nail going in the coffin.

What is the time frame now? I guess wait and see the outcome of the election and see if those in power can make any progress over a couple of months or so. If not then it the s.o.s. and see what he has to say. And then i guess its taking it to court if the legal eagles thinks there is a case. As has been said previously i doubt it will persuade Yorkcourt to get building either way but i guess we will have a clearer picture by the end of the season.

The nub of my questions is driving at the why. . . why would someone calculatingly instruct a planning officer to recommend approval or mislead a committee through the omission of details in order to get this Newcold building passed? Who could do it? What's in it for them?

What's needed is information, information like the name of the Legal company the Council took advice from, we need to catch them in a lie and turn up the heat to get to the truth.

There has only got to be one answer for me - the first (only?) new stadium in the district will be in Castleford. The question is - has there been anything illegal in making this happen, or are they just conniving, slimy, greasy articles who have no regard for their public and are only there for their own ends.

We asked under the Freedom of Information Act to see the legal advice but the Council whist saying that they took legal advice informed us that they do not hold the advice so are unable to supply it. Read into that what you will. I know what I think but cannot say on here.

As someone else said on here earlier, there must be a paper trail an invoice or something, that's if it ever happened