WORCESTER City are remaining tight-lipped on possible new stadium sites being earmarked as alternatives to Nunnery Way.

The St George’s Lane club have started looking at different options for a new home after supporters raised concerns at a £720,000 shortfall involved in a proposed £2m Fleetwood-style development.

The club’s business plan, which was based on a larger £5m stadium, was also heavily criticised by Worcester City Council senior planning officer Alan Coleman.

Vice-chairman Jim Panter, now in charge of the club’s relocation project following David Hallmark’s decision to take a back seat, declined to identify the sites being discussed but said he believed Nunnery Way was still the front-runner.

“At the moment we are listing the various options that people are talking about and trying to evaluate them,” he said.

“They are names that have been bandied around in the past two to three years but if we are going to make them public we need the agreement of the people who own them and who we are negotiating with.

“My view is that Nunnery Way is still likely to be the most viable, assuming that the planning application can find a way through the policy issues that were reported.

“I think Nunnery Way is a clear contender. It’s a site which is under ownership, is available to the club and is considerably well down the planning permission path.

“Given the right financial circumstances being in place, it’s affordable. It’s probably the most certain opportunity in front of us.”

Although the Blue Square South club have not confirmed the locations under review, it is likely that one of them is the Cinderella Sports Ground in St John’s, a site dismissed by the board ahead of last November’s annual general meeting.

It was put forward by the Shareholders Action Group, who stood against the club’s directors at the controversial County Hall meeting, after they highlighted their concerns for the costs in-volved with Nunnery Way.

They wanted to build a 6,000-capacity stadium, as well as an Olympic-sized swimming pool, on the five-acre site and pointed to the infrastructure being already in place.

Other possible sites could include being part of the Community Sports Hub at Hindlip proposed by Sir Bert Millichip Sports Limited or the University of Worcester’s third campus at Grove Farm, near St John’s.

A fresh bid to either ground-share or rent land at Worcester Warriors’ Sixways complex may also form part of the board’s thinking.

City will be able to stay at the Lane until June 2012 as part of the deal to sell to Careys New Homes for £3.5m.