KEIGHLEY COUGARS will no longer receive more than £2m in planned funding, Bradford Council has announced.
The Championship club were due to receive £2.25m from the Keighley Towns fund – a scheme awarded by the then-Conservative government to boost regeneration in the town – to develop their Cougar Park home.
Plans for the renovations included rebuilding the Danny Jones Stand, as well as creating new facilities at the stadium.
However, whilst the funding was set aside more than four years ago, it was never handed out, despite the Cougars’ project being one of the Towns Fund board’s priorities.
Now, it has been announced that the club will not receive the money, with Bradford Council deeming the club “have not been able to provide sufficient information to demonstrate the viability of their proposed project.”
It’s a move that has “absolutely infuriated” Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore, who has written to the Council demanding they release the money the club is owed.
He fumed on social media: “It has taken them years, sitting on this money – our money, that was awarded to the Keighley Cougars, and they’ve decided not to release this money, but instead allocate it to other projects.
“This is an absolute disgrace. The reality of it is, we know that if the Keighley Cougars and sport are doing well in our town, then Keighley thrives.
“The fact that Bradford Council, under the new leadership of Reform, have refused to release that money that was given to the council to distribute to the Keighley Cougars four years ago, is a disgrace.
“I hope that all of us in Keighley will not tolerate this decision, and that we will demand that the money, over £2m of it, is given to the Cougars so that we can all benefit and so that our town thrives on the back of it.”