WORCESTER City fans had their first chance to view in detail the club’s proposals for a new stadium on the outskirts of the city at a special exhibition yesterday.

The computer-generated images of the planned Nunnery Way venue – first revealed on our website yesterday afternoon – will, we suspect, provoke a mixed reaction.

Some will undoubtedly question the ambition behind the scheme to build a 4,400-capacity stadium only good enough for the Blue Square Premier League – just one division above the league in which City currently play.

Others will view the proposal as justifiably prudent in the current economic climate.

The proposal envisages three further phases to the stadium’s construction, with the potential for it to eventually hold 10,000 fans.

Such ambition would be horribly out of place and unrealistic at the moment but allows the club room for manoeuvre that it does not enjoy at its current St George’s Lane home.

Developer St Modwen says the stadium will be the centrepiece of a £30 million scheme that will include offices, car showrooms, along with a hotel, restaurant and pub. They also dangle the carrot of 600 new jobs.

This newspaper remains broadly supportive of Worcester City’s desire for a new stadium (though we continue to believe a ground share at Sixways to be worthy of further consideration).

The submission of a planning application to the city council is the next stage in what has become a saga stretching back more than two decades. Whether the promise of a new home for Worcester City by the summer of 2010 is to remain a pipe dream is likely to be decided in the early part of next year. But for now, it is at least good to see some flesh on the bones of the proposal.