Wildcats eye brighter future after plans for new stadium given the green light

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has provisionally passed planning permission for the major development on the former colliery site at Newmarket.

A decision on last December’s planning inquiry was due on Tuesday but was delayed at the last moment causing some worry among the Trinity hierarchy.

Chairman Andrew Glover, who bought the West Yorkshire club out of administration last year, admitted: “It’s a massive relief.

“There has been a lot of work gone on to get us where we are today. There has been doubts along the way but everyone has seen sense.”

The stadium will be funded by development company Yorkcourt Properties, which has eight weeks to provide additional information to satisfy the Secretary of State but Trinity see that as a formality.

It will be owned by the Wakefield & District Community Trust and the Wildcats, who hope to be playing there by 2015, will become primary tenants.

Trinity chief executive James Elston said: “Just over a year ago we said we’d secured the immediate future of the club and the news today gives us the next 100 years of life of Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.”