Hi All
Firstly can I thank you all for your continued support... and sorry we have and still continue to be a little vague on recent progress and ongoing discussions. We do have to make these choices because our aim is purely to deliver what we all want and what was promised, a new stadium, somewhere within the City. To do so we do have to try and maintain a level of confidentiality, because that is what is asked of us by the other parties involved and also because we have learnt the hard way that getting peoples hopes up in what is a complete mess of complexity and politics really isn't good for anyone. We remain hugely sceptical of the leadership WMDC and Yorkcourts/Henry Boot desire and ability to deliver both a location and funding for a new stadium... but we ain't ever giving up.
I need to also say a massive thanks to Ian Bramley, Phil Townsend & Mary Creagh MP for speaking in objection to the Kitwave application. Ian had to step in when it unfortunately became apparent early this week, that I wasn't going to be able to make the meeting to speak in behalf of the Trust. Thanks Ian, you are a star!
So, there is still some potentially good news to be delivered in the coming few weeks, but again we are still cautious because we have been here so many times before. However, that news while hopefully good and very welcome is only the first piece of the jigsaw and what matters now is that we work towards getting all the pieces of the jigsaw in place, or all we are left with is an unfinished jigsaw!
We didn't expect the result we got yesterday and we are delighted that, to our surprise if we are completely honest, that it was so soundly rejected by the planning committee. We would look to thank those councillors that did so overwhelmingly vote against Kitwave, against officer advice, because they actually did take a moral stance and asked some fundamental questions about how the developer had been allowed to stick up "two fingers" (Ian B) and show "utter contempt" (Phil T) in the "biggest game of cat and mouse in the council's history" (Mary Creagh) to the citizens of Wakefield.
What happens next... well we are not exactly a 100% sure and while we discussed the possibility of victory and what then might happen, we didn't do so into the level of detail we did for losing. We do know that winning yesterday was much better for the cause, that is what we set out to do, and certainly initially a much more cost effective way to make progress.
We will of course give you as much information as we are able, with prejudicing our goal of delivering that new stadium.
Thank you all again for keeping faith with us, we do appreciate it.