Rugby club plans High Court action over stadium plans

The owners of Rugby League club Wakefield Trinity are planning to take its long-running dispute with the council over a proposed new stadium to the High Court.

In September, Wakefield Council put forward a proposal for a £12m redevelopment, which would see a 10,000-seat stadium on the site by 2020. Plans were agreed in principle with the Super League side, which has played at Belle Vue since 1895.

But Wakefield Trinity want Wakefield Council to continue with plans to build a stadium near Rothwell, as announced in 2010, rather than redevelop the club’s existing Belle Vue ground.

It says the Belle Vue plan is “uneconomical” and it is “preparing our case for presentation to the court”.

Plans for a 12,000-capacity stadium at Newmarket Lane were first put forward in 2010 and approved in 2012 but work has never started.

Last month, the council’s discussions with Wakefield Trinity regarding the redevelopment of Belle Vue stalled as it said Wakefield Trinity owners “rejected previously agreed plans” that they need to pay a commercial rent and allow the community stadium to be run and managed by a charitable trust.

In response to this, Wakefield Trinity said: “We are now offered a lease at a full commercial rent at a revamped Belle Vue. That simply puts the club back to where we were in 2013- an uneconomic proposition, which would quickly cause the demise of the club.”

The owners of Wakefield Trinity – Chris Brereton and Michael Carter – say the deal being offered to keep the club at Belle Vue is “unacceptable”.

In a statement, the club said: “The reason we are in the present predicament with no security of tenure for the future of Wakefield Trinity and its new Super League Stadium is entirely the fault of Wakefield Council.

“Six years ago after three weeks of evidence, a Public Enquiry paid for by the ratepayers of Wakefield, concluded that a community stadium compliant to Super League standards should be built and funded by the planning gains which accrued to the property developer of the Newmarket site adjacent to the M62.

“It was the duty of Wakefield Council, as the Local Planning Authority, to ensure that in return for the land coming out of the green belt, the community stadium was constructed. The developer has its planning consent but not a brick has been laid on the stadium site. We simply require the Council to fulfil its statutory duties.

“The council now seeks to lay the blame for the mess which it has created, at the door of Wakefield Trinity.”

It added: “We have waited since June 2012 for the council to deliver Newmarket Stadium. We are no nearer today then we were then.”

Wakefield Council said it was “saddened by the threat of legal action”.