Leeds City Council have brokered a £35,000,000 deal with a private financial services company towards the new Headingley stands, according to reports the Rhinos will repay £18 million in rent to the company over a period of time with Yorkshire County Cricket club paying £17 million. Cannot some of the much less cost towards a new stadium for Trinity be raised similarly with WMDC help or is there not the interest/political will of the council there to help Wakefield Trinity, an iconic brand dating from the late 1800's.

The problem is, Headingley brings income to the city of Leeds.
Belle Vue doesn't really.

Fair question and the fair answer would be yes but realistically I cant see the council having the same feeling for us as Leeds do for Headingley. On the TV interview last night the council leader for Leeds stressed the importance of having cricket there but also mentioned the Rhinos and the importance of having SL as well

Err it does, nowhere near as much as Headingley I grant you but we pay rates, we employ probably over forty full time staff (includes players) and way more part time jobs.

The daft thing is the Council bend over backwards to bring in these companies into Wakefield who build huge warehouses that employ tiny numbers of people on minimum wage. We actually offer more in terms of employment and given half a chance we'd soon increase that.

It's not a case of wanting the councils money, just there active support would be nice - I have to ask why do you continually make excuses for Box and co?

Pop Tart, you are Peter Box and I claim my £5!!!

I will recall back to my days of working at Headingley Stadium between 2000 and 2003.

I had heard at the time, that they were looking for funding towards upgrading the stadium.

I am sure that there was talk of the application being processed via Yorkshire CCC to the ECB as at the time Headingley was classsed at 20% of a national stadium

You never know if WMDC actually invested in the stadium it might start to generate revenue for Wakefield by attracting sporting and cultural events beyond rugby league...

Yes it could.

Wakefield dont have a decent sized venue for concerts.

As part of the City Of Culture Celebrations in Hull in 2017, Craven Park is hosting a Paul Heaton an Jacqui Abbot concert(anyone on here not in the know, Housemartins an Beautiful South fame) one of our favourite bands and already got the tickets and hotel booked.

Revenue in ground and in city

I'd have thought Crigg All Blacks would've been big enough for that one

Ha ha, Big Lads Mate.

Saw them years ago, I think in 97 or 98 at the McAlpine.

Only time that stadium was ever full or had any atmosphere

That's a good point - a city venue that could host events of that nature would be a real asset; and a sports stadium is ideal for decent sized gigs, shows, exhibitions and events of all types.

Just a shame the Council lacks the vision, or the desire, to see that far ahead; I suspect the barrier is the fractious relationship between Box and WT.

In a perfect world that would be wonderful but unfortunately the Wakefield public are incredibly fickle as we at Wakefield know by experience. In my 40 odd years of watching gigs in Wakefield I'd guess only about 10% of gigs sell out, even in the punk days people would rather travel to Leeds to watch a gig.
One instance, we went to see the Members at Leeds Poly one Tuesday evening, it was a sell out, they played Bretton hall college on the Saturday (yes I know it's a little way out) and there was our minibus of people there, ten people.