Auditor will consider complaint over controversial sale of Halifax's Shay Stadium
The council previously agreed to sell the ground to Huddersfield Giants owner Ken Davy
Last updated 1st Oct 2025
A council’s external auditor is considering an objection it has received from a resident over the proposed sale of Calderdale’s main sports stadium.
In the spring Calderdale Council’s Cabinet agreed to sell the Shay Stadium at Halifax, which is home to the town’s professional sports clubs, football’s FC Halifax Town and rugby league’s Halifax Panthers, to another sports chief, Ken Davy.
Mr Davy, who owns Huddersfield Giants rugby league club, wants to house his team at The Shay – the two Halifax sides also still playing there – while a new ground for his own club is identified and built on a site in Kirklees.
Cabinet say a covenant to protect the ground for sports use after Mr Davy decided to leave it will be part of the sale process and argue this option represents the best chance of The Shay Stadium having a sustainable future.
The sale is controversial among some people and has been on hold pending consideration of the stadium’s status as an asset of community value with Cabinet members expected to consider it again in November.
This week Alastair Newall, key audit partner for Forvis Mazars, the council’s external auditors, told Audit Committee councillors an objection with a series of questions from an elector had been received by the company.
He said the process which would be followed begins with considering whether the objection is eligible.
“We are currently in the process of determining what work we need to do to respond to the objector,” he said.
Mr Newall confirmed it related to the Shay Stadium but could not give committee members many more details at this point.
He did say there were a number of aspects within the objection, all related to the disposal of The Shay Stadium and the process the council had gone through in the disposal of the asset.
The council says due process has been followed.
If there were things the council needed to address as a result that would be fed through from the auditor to the council, or, if the objection was not upheld, there would be no reason to come back to audit councillors other than to say there had been an objection received and they had closed the case, said Mr Newall.
Whatever the outcome was, resulting the objection, it was the auditor’s decision, he said.
The council will incur a cost from the auditor for considering the objection, said Mr Newall, answering a question from Coun Geraldine Carter (Con, Brighouse) as the standard audit fee the council pays does not incorporate the time and cost to the auditor of dealing with objections.
A council’s accounts are deposited for a 30-day period so members of the public can ask questions of the council and auditor, the audit councillors heard.