Can't see any commercial reason for Wasps refusing to say where sites they decided not to pursue are located. It says it would adversely impact Wasps moving forward, not sure how if they're going with AHC.
Interestingly the earlier emails refer to Wasps using land adjacent to AHC, presumably the Severn Trent land that was previously rumoured. Would be interesting to know what happened to that and why they have instead decided to locate where a loss of existing facilities will be required.
Not keen on the bit from the council that talks about 'manage the PR', how is that the councils job? If I want to build an extension will they manage the PR to persuade my neighbours not to object?
The other line that stands out to me is 'please can you provide some information on this which will help us to justify the proposal to the planning committee'. Again is this really the councils responsibility? Us can only really mean either the council or the council and Wasps. In either case why are the council involved in justifying the football club losing its academy?
I guess the key question is do they treat other applications in a similar manner.
I read "us" as being the Planning department. I also read the whole conversation differently to Les.
“Hi Rob. I’ve been looking through the application that came in whilst I was on leave and I can’t see any information regarding the loss of the existing football and netball pitches and the relocation of these facilities either within the Allard Way site or elsewhere.
“The loss of the facilities was always going to be a sticking point, and this seems to be being realised by the early objections that we have received.
“Please can you provide some information on this, which will help us to justify the proposal to planning committee when the time comes?”
Reading this section fully again, it's clear that the proposal should have included "i
nformation regarding the loss of the existing football and netball pitches", but didn't. The planning department asked about the "
relocation of these facilities either within the Allard Way site or elsewhere". I read this as, you were told to cover the existing provision in your application and you haven't, so please revise your submission or provide information about where the pitches will be.
Of course what has been left out of 'multi-award winning' Reid's article is the Wasps response.
Wasps are going to pay for the relocation of the main grass pitch and made an offer for the use of the other facilities. Now I don't like what Wasps are doing here and I've written to my Councillor to say so (see my thread called 'Councillors'), but this piece from Reid is so wide of the mark it's like a Leigh Jenkinson cross. He's misread the mail, assumed the intentions of the Planning Officer furthered his agenda and then published without checking that his position might be true.