Club & Trust Joint Statement - 31st July 2017 : Mon Jul 31, 2017 9:12 am
Following on from Jonathan Stone’s Personal Statement of 27th July 2017 the Wakefield & District Community Trust (the Trust) and Wakefield Trinity (the Club) would like to make the following Joint Statement.Sir Rodney Walker resigned from the W&DCT in February 2017 claiming that he was forming his own Trust yet 6 months on his Trust still does not appear to have been registered with Companies House or the Charities Commission. Furthermore despite requests from the Trust and the Media he seems very reluctant to name the members of his Board of Trustees.
Sir Rodney has been invited on a number of occasions to re-join the W&DCT and was given a deadline of close of business on Friday 28th July by which to accept that invitation but we regret to announce that we have not heard anything from him so can only assume that he does not wish to accept the invitation and consequently the invitation to him to re-join this Trust has been withdrawn.
The W&DCT and the Club have at all times acted reasonably in this matter in being prepared to allow Sir Rodney to re-join the Trust he Chaired for around 7 years. This is despite him walking away from the Trust and his past failings in agreeing to allow Newcold to be excluded from the trigger included in the Section 106 Agreement, failing to inform any other Trust Board Members and advising the Club not to make a bid to buy back Belle Vue because Yorkcourt would acquire it which they failed to do so.
The Trust and the Club therefore will not work with Sir Rodney and his Trust, if it is ever registered, and call upon him to walk away and allow the W&DCT to get on with the job of delivering this Stadium. Furthermore the Club has made it clear to all parties that they will only lease and play in the Stadium if it is delivered and owned by the Wakefield & District Community Trust.
We therefore call upon Cllr Peter Box and the Council to acknowledge that the Wakefield & District Community Trust, the Trust that they themselves established to facilitate the delivery of the Stadium, the Trust that is named in the Section 106 Agreement and was named in the Public Inquiry is the only Trust that they are prepared to work with and together work towards delivering this Stadium.