SAINSBURY'S bid to build a superstore at Swanpool Walk is Worcester's most-discussed application of the decade, possibly the past 40 years.

So it's easy to understand the anger and incredulity being voiced in St John's, today, following the city council's decision to stall on a final answer.

How can any councillor have failed to weigh the pros and cons by now? How, indeed.

However, the decision has such repercussions for the life, business and development of the Faithful City over the next 50 years that - in our opinion - the planning committee can just about defend giving members 19 more days to decide.

While that provides campaigners on both sides of the St John's fence a chance to make final representations, councillors mustn't waste their time.

Of the four applications for superstores in and on the fringe of the self-styled village in the city, having been turned down once, the public inquiry into Asda's bid for St Clement's Gate is on hold.

Safeways' hopes for Hylton Road's tatty, former riverside fruit market were scuppered on flooding and Local Plan grounds in February, and Tesco's hopes of replacing Christopher Whitehead High School with a shop remain in the melting pot.

Five months ago, we offered the view that St Clement's Gate should be leisure-orientated and that there were reasons to reject Sainsbury's on the basis of the economic and environmental impact on the area. That thinking can still be applied to Tesco, too.

So, once the planning committee has ruminated, we face the prospect of four proposals and four rejections. It's not beyond possibility, it wouldn't be a disaster if it happened - and we think it must.