THE new board of York City Knights are to meet with City of York Council’s community stadium chiefs on Wednesday with a view to ending the stalemate that has seen the rugby league club frozen out of the stadium scheme.

Project manager Tim Atkins told a packed meeting last night he was “confident” the situation would progress.

The meeting, at New Earswick Folk Hall, was set up by the council and the Knights Independent Supporters’ Society and saw the project team give a presentation of the plans.

Atkins received a mixed reception during a question-and-answer session, particularly when asked why the council prevented the Knights players from training at facilities already in place, and continued to lay the blame at the door of Knights chairman John Guildford for the breakdown in talks.

He also said financial terms, which many fans believe to be the crux of the matter, remained confidential.

However, four new directors have recently joined the Knights board with the brief of taking over stadium negotiations from Guildford, and Atkins said: “I’m pretty confident we will be able to move forward.

“I can’t say it will definitely happen but hopefully we will be satisfied with the governance arrangement and we can get straight into negotiations.

“We are hopeful we may be able to ratify something and make a public statement that things are moving forward.”