Absolutely snowie ! Wakefield council are shocking and must be a laughing stock amongst other councils across the country.

It always helps when the are two higher education institutions and city ethos of sporting excellence to generate sufficient funding to build such a facility.

You need a Council that recognises the health benefits of an active lifestyle.
You need a Council that understands the influence that a strong sporting presence has on creating aspiration amongst the youth of an area.
You need a Council that doesn't blow smoke up the backsides of its populace and doesn't hide behind flimsy excuses for its inaction.

Top post mate and I agree 100% but how do you get a council like that. You won't get one voted in thats for sure.

Sheffield? The same Council who closed Don Valley Stadium, where the multi-medal winning Jessica Ennis CBE started her career and trained for the Olympics?

This quote from Richard Caborn in 2013 is interesting:

"Community sport is probably facing one of the bleakest periods it has had for some time. Local authorities are facing a reduction of 50% in non-discretionary spending and account for between 80% and 90% of spending on all community sports facilities. The year-on-year impact is going to be devastating."

Given that prediction, which came true, it's even more baffling that Wakefield Council are prepared to dismiss the Newmarket development as nothing to do with them; I would have thought that the development of a Community Stadium at virtually no cost to their budget and without the need for ongoing discretionary funding, would have been manna from heaven. But no - Mr Box says it's a private arrangement between the Developer and The Trust, so he isn't interested.

I suppose the fact the facility existed in the first place to be demolished shows the difference in attitude to sports between the two cities. Happily for Sheffield they seem keen to replace what they lost fairly swiftly. I think they were also looking to renovate an existing smaller stadium and running track for the provision of athletics.

One question I do have, even if there was the political will to hold Yorkcourt to there pre development promises, is there any money to actually do it. Yes it may put a stop to the development at NM, but it wouldn't help in the slightest in providing sports facilities for Wakefield.

And we all know why Box is not interested!

The Sheffield situation does show what can be achieved IF the right people get behind a project and have the will to make it happen.
Unfortunately, there does appear to be something missing from our own situation.

Of course, Sheffield does need to secure some funding but, they wont suffer the same planning difficulties that we have endured.

Mind you, knocking down a (relatively) new stadium to build something similar in its place, albeit with some additional facilities seems bonkers, we could have made use of the main stand that they had down there.

Don Valley was a white elephant, a basket case and it needed knocking down.

Don't let the nostalgic whingings convince you otherwise.

Not surprised that a certain person don't appear interested there is a man who stated in the local rag about something not being needed and expensive etc and then goes and votes in favour of it happening.Now that's a train of thought for you at high speed.

Yet people keep voting them in!!

I wonder if Balfour Beatty want to give back some money they managed to precure from the people of Wakefield...
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But yet the mid-yorkshire hospitals are crippled with debt and laying people off, how can this be so if PFI schemes are that great for us taxpayers. Definitely seem to be great for the likes of Balfour Beatty and their partners. I bet the top brass of both sides made a nice little earner out of this.

See York council have tonight given support and some financial support to the City of York community stadium and we have the WMDC stating that the City of Wakefield Community Stadium is nothing to do with them.

The decision by York can only help our political aims.

Seems Calderdale council are worse than WMDC, they have been illegally charging for roadside parking since 2008 :0

They only have to support one team - York City Knights.

They don't have to find financial help for three - Castleford, Wakefield and Fev.

Aye - there's the rub. Support the Cas stadium with money and we'd be up in arms (and probably Fev as well). Support the Trin stadium with money and they'd be up in arms (and probably Fev as well). They could split any money 3 ways but then there wouldn't be enough for any of them. Do nothing and you'll get criticism from all three. I wouldn't like to be in the position of the decision maker.

However (there's always a "however"icon_wink.gif there's a lot more support that could be given without it being in cash, be it pressure, planning permission issues, publicity, facilitating links with other funding partners/bodies etc. It could be that this is going on in the background but we don't know. With the past history of the project (I'm reminded of Cllr Box turning up in a Cas shirt when we were lobbying them) it's natural to assume that they're doing nothing, but we may be wrong.

Could have got the 106 sorted properly to start with.

If WMDC are skint they can still offer support to a community facility run by an independent trust not a club. The we have 3 clubs has been an easy cop out by the WMDC for years, plenty of towns/Cities have more than 1 sporting club but still offer help support and sometimes finance for the best facilities for its clubs and public. I don't think we expect WMDC to build the community stadium but a bit of support wouldn't go a miss. The sports facilities for a City the size of a Wakefield are a disgrace so you would think the local authority would do all they can to help sports faculties.

I am not disagreeing that it'd be nice for them to help all three clubs out. But it's getting harder and harder to justify it when you see what a state the district is in. However, what may be interesting to see is the amount of money other councils get compared to WMDC. And I'm struggling to think - certainly in rugby league - of two teams in the same council area bar Bradford perhaps and Hull and they will get loads of money from covering the east.

It probably doesn't matter to them but aren't Wigan and Leigh under the same council? Swinton and Salford?

Kirklees have Huddersfield batley Dewsbury. Wigan council built Leigh sports village then we have the inept WMDC

You are making the classic mistake of confusing capital spend with revenue spend. Putting £2m into a community stadium will have no effect on the number of care homes, libraries or other social care support mechanisms. It is capital spend and they can own a share of it if they like and hence still show it on their capital asset register!

What chance have we got when the leader of the council is a shareholder in the club that would suffer the most if we got a new stadium?