12/01/2026
Statement regarding the Mill & Tileyard North
Following recent posts and comments online, we feel it’s important to provide context and clarity around why we are no longer based at Tileyard North.
As many people know, we moved into Tileyard in 2022 as an extension of our long-established businesses — The Yorkshire Deli, which was founded in Wakefield city centre and later expanded to Leeds, and The Yorkshire Catering Company. The move was presented to us as an exciting opportunity to help launch a new concept 'The Yorkshire Brasserie' in partnership with the Tileyard's owners, alongside events in the Mill and the Carding Shed, within what was marketed as a major new creative hub for the North.
Tileyard North is a beautiful, renovated old mill, partly listed, and as Wakefield people, we were genuinely excited to be among the first adopters on the site. We wanted it to succeed for Wakefield and for West Yorkshire. Tileyard North was positioned as the sister site to Tileyard London — a thriving creative campus. Tileyard North was backed by significant council and government funding, aligned with West Yorkshire’s creative vision. It was promoted as a development that would include a hotel, creative education provision, a thriving music and events hub, and a genuinely supportive environment for local & creative businesses.
Those promises were fundamental in gaining public backing and in persuading local businesses like ours to invest. Years on, the hotel remains nothing more than an empty shell and decking. The promised creative education, meaningful music infrastructure, and thriving creative business community have not fully materialised. Instead, what has emerged feels far removed from the vision sold to us, the council, funders, and local people.
Based on the assurances we were given, we personally invested hundreds of thousands of pounds into Tileyard North. As a family business, we took extraordinary risks because we believed in the vision that was sold to us. We fully believed the opportunity would allow us to recover our investments.
However, the reality was very different.
We were told that resident footfall on opening alone would be between 500–700 people on site. In reality, it was closer to 30. Despite this, we staffed the venue seven days a week, often never breaking close to even, operating at a constant loss and frequently sacrificing our own livelihoods to keep going.
The hospitality industry as a whole in recent times has been struggling, and we were not immune to that. But the challenges at Tileyard North went far beyond normal trading difficulties. Rents were higher than Leeds, Manchester, and in some cases comparable to London — despite this being a publicly funded project in Wakefield, owned by a multi-millionaire developer. Local businesses were expected to pay inflated rents in their own hometown, while the financial benefit did not appear to be reinvested back into Wakefield or the wider region.
In our experience, what was promoted as a creative, community-focused development increasingly appeared to operate as a property business — funded by the public, carried by local operators, and structured to generate returns for owners based outside the region. The people, businesses, and communities that were meant to benefit, instead bore the risk.
Local people and experienced staff were, in our view, poorly treated, undervalued, and sacrificed. The Brasserie partnership was never equal in our opinion, and it quickly became clear that continuing would cause us serious financial harm and reputational damage. Under those circumstances, the Brasserie partnership ended with the Tileyard owners and the reasoning blamed solely on us, despite them rarely visiting the site in person.
We then remained on site solely to fulfil our obligations for existing event bookings at the Mill upstairs, including weddings and private events. Unfortunately, this came with extremely inflated rent, ongoing conflicts of interest with other dry hires arranged by the Tileyard (not ourselves) - including heavily capacitated club nights. We were also banned from accessing the full kitchen facilities and the spaces we had already sold as extra breakout spaces for our events. These obstacles along with an environment that made it impossible to run family-focused and community events safely and professionally hindered our abilities to provide the quality of service we aimed for.
We also witnessed what we and many others believed to be a willingness by the Tileyard North to break their own rules around safety standards when it suited their needs and financial interests, while their vendor's were still expected to operate responsibly on site.
The entire experience has been heartbreaking, exhausting, and incredibly stressful. Staff turnover was high, and while we fully acknowledge that we have not been perfect in how everything was handled, we tried the best we could in an impossible situation. What has been most upsetting for us is the realisation that the owners priorities were not, in practice, aligned with Wakefield, West Yorkshire, or the creative vision they were implemented to support; but instead appeared focused on extracting value. Sadly lives, livelihoods, and family businesses have been damaged in the process.
We went from running a successful, well-established business to being pushed close to ruin, reputational damage and dropped standards; all because of how hard it became to make the situation work.
Since then, we have taken on a local pub in Sandal, where we live, and are working closely with other local venues and event partners. Regarding all existing bookings at the Mill:
• Every booking has been or will be contacted.
• We are committed to ensuring events still go ahead where possible.
• All deposits will be fully refunded if events cannot proceed.
Unfortunately, the situation with Tileyard North has now moved completely out of our control, and we have been formally evicted following disputes over money and other ongoing conflicts. We would not usually comment publicly, but as statements have already been made and the issue has moved onto social media — with significant personal and professional backlash — we felt it necessary to share our statement.
Many businesses and individuals have been affected by the promises made around Tileyard North. This does not excuse any issues people may have experienced with us, and for those we sincerely apologise. We are a family-led business trying to survive in one of the most challenging periods hospitality has ever faced.
We ask for understanding, kindness, and perspective. We remain committed to doing right by every customer and supplier affected.
Finally, regarding false and defamatory statements currently circulating online — these are being addressed appropriately.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Let’s move into the new year with forward thinking and positively.
Best wishes,
The Lawlors
tileyard_north
