Witness saw 'big cat' while staying at Wakefield cafe and motel Redbeck which could be set for demolition

A developer wants to knock down the Redbeck Motel in Crofton to make way for the new properties.

Forty people have already objected to the plan since the application appeared online on Tuesday (Jan 30).

But in 2016 Royal Mail worker Phil Chapman couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted this cat like creature roaming while staying at the motel.

Mr Chapman, then 48, captured the animal, believed to be a big cat, on camera, as it was prowling through nearby fields.

He said it emerged from the bushes at around 8pm

Mr Chapman, from North Yorkshire, said: “I was on the phone to a friend looking out of the window at the fields, watching the rabbits, and this big cat just came through the hedgerow.

“It was just casually walking across the field.

“It’s clearly not a domestic cat.”

He added: “Whereas normally these things are a case of blink and it’s gone, this was in no rush to get across the field.”

Mr Chapman said the animal looked similar to a a panther.

It is not the first time a “big cat” has been spotted in the district.

There have been several reported sightings of the ‘Beast Oo Ossett’, which hit national headlines in 2000.

Observers likened it to a big black Irish wolfhound.

Three years later there was a report of a large black cat stalking the village of Wintersett.

There were also sightings of a panther or puma-like beast roaming between Alverthorpe and Ossett in 2006.

More recently, in November 2022, Jeff Johnson, from Normanton, was heading out for a run, driving near Heath Common when he filmed what appeared to be a big cat.

It began a string of contemporary and historical reports of big cat sightings in the Wakefield district and across West Yorkshire.

Locations included Flanshaw, Welbeck landfill site, Middleton Woods in south Leeds and Littletown FC in Cleckheaton.