WORCESTER City have been handed a lifeline.

That’s probably the best way of describing the city council’s approval of plans for a new stadium at Nunnery Way.

Councillors voted 6-5 in favour of property giants St Modwen developing the 20-acre site alongside the M5.

A retail park with football ground tagged on the end it might be in principle, yet it is City’s only chance of a future – which would have been all but non-existent had the vote gone against the club.

It is far from an ideal situation and they are by no means certain to survive the move but, whether people like it or not, there is no alternative.

Forget the past. We all know how the mismanagement of former regimes has left City in this mess but apportioning blame won’t help.

City are where they are. They have been given an opportunity to make a future for themselves, which is about the best they could have hoped for at the Guildhall last Thursday.

City vice-chairman Colin Layland summed it up when he said the decision “put the club’s destiny in its own hands”.

With the plans approved, at least City have hope.

Had they been rejected, St Modwen would either have appealed the decision or bided their time before coming back with new plans.

That would have dragged the saga on even longer and taken up time City don’t have.

Remember, St Modwen have, contractually, until 2017 to build the new stadium but City have to be out of St George’s Lane by June 2013.

Even if, say, Careys let them stay as tenants for a season, at least the planning permission brings a certain amount of urgency that previously didn’t exist.

It’s still a David versus Goliath situation but David now has better ammunition.

There are still plenty of hurdles to overcome, not least the issue of how City pay for the stadium.

The remainder of the Lane sale proceeds not used to pay off bank debt have been swallowed up by the £1.266m infrastructure costs, leaving a £1.5million funding chasm.

City are clinging to the hope they can use prefabricated materials to significantly reduce costs and replace them with permanent structures later on down the line.

Crucially, however, there is now every possibility City will avoid a potentially fatal capital gains tax bill in two years.

Without a new home, the club were facing a charge of around £500,000 which may have taken them under.

Now that is not necessarily the case as, even if the bricks and mortar are not in place, the presence of planning consent gives them leverage with HM Revenue and Customs. Suddenly, there is a small chink of light at the end of the tunnel.

With the proposals finding favour in our Worcester News online poll, with less than a third of the 600 voters coming out against the plan, now we must all unite to give the club a chance of a brighter future.