MP Jason McCartney wants the debate over Kirklees Council’s controversial decision to move away from housing a new national Rugby League museum at Huddersfield’s historic George Hotel to be played out in Parliament.
Conservative McCartney, whose Colne Valley constituency covers the South of the town, has also discussed the council’s proposal to base the attraction at an alternative site in the centre of Huddersfield with Sports Minister Nigel Huddlestone.
Along with the RFL, the charity Rugby League Cares, who are partners in the project and will run the museum, have called Kirklees’ action “unilateral” and could ditch the town for another location.
Speaking in the House of Commons, McCartney, who is a member of the Rugby League All-Party Parliamentary Group, called for an adjournment debate (a half-hour session at the end of a day’s sitting) on the matter.
He said that would provide an opportunity to express his “deep disappointment that Labour-run Kirklees has reneged on an agreement to host the National Rugby League Museum in the birthplace of Rugby League, the George Hotel in Huddersfield.”
The Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg, admitted to a lack of knowledge of Rugby League, but in comments directed to the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, a well-known Rugby League supporter, he said the application for an adjournment debate “may be very favourably looked upon”.
Kirklees’ success in beating rival bids from Bradford, Leeds and Wigan, announced in June 2020, hinged on the museum being set up at Rugby League’s famous 1895 birthplace, which having been closed since 2013, has been purchased by the council as part of an ambitious £250 million town-centre regeneration scheme.
But the authority now insist a combined hotel and museum at the grade-two listed Victorian building adjacent to the railway station “would not be financially viable without an ongoing cost to Kirklees residents”.
Meanwhile Batley Bulldogs Chairman Kevin Nicholas has suggested that if the Museum can’t be accommodated in Huddersfield, he would like to see it established at Mount Pleasant.
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