THE city council's new leader says Worcester City FC should never have been offered Perdiswell Park as an option for a stadium - attacking the Labour Party for allowing it to happen.

Councillor Marc Bayliss has told your Worcester News he believes there are "lots of pieces of land" potentially available elsewhere which could prove more suitable.

The Conservative, who officially became new leader at the Guildhall on Tuesday night, also said he'd "have to be deaf" to ignore the sheer scale of public objections to Perdiswell.

As we revealed yesterday, the city council has now revealed it is scanning the whole of Worcester for possible alternatives for the exiled club.

It follows private talks late last year between the authority's managing director Sheena Ramsey and club officials, where she admitted to having reservations about the Perdiswell scheme, angering the supporter's trust.

But we can reveal how Councillor Bayliss has laid the blame with the Labour Party, which controlled the authority for one year in 2013/14.

At the time, then-managing director Duncan Sharkey was known to be keen on Perdiswell as a site and actively encouraged the trust to submit its planning application over building on the park's green open space.

Councillor Bayliss has insisted he does not want to "pre-judge" the planning application - but has reiterated his desire to consider other sites.

He has also hit out at the Perdiswell project being allowed to get into gear without any consultation, accusing Labour of not being "more careful" over the future of public open space.

"What's happened is simple, the Labour leader at the time (Councillor Adrian Gregson) decided privately that Perdiswell was the perfect site," he said.

"I don't intend to pre-judge any planning application but you'd have to be deaf not to hear the concerns of local residents.

"I do think it's prudent to look at other options to help the club, because we all want to see them come back to Worcester, but if we're not awfully careful this will descend into a political football."

He also said he felt there would be other options out there, and was confident officers could get some sites together if the Perdiswell bid failed to get past the planning committee.

"I think if you look around Worcester lots of pieces of land are still available for all sorts of things," he said.

"If we felt there wasn't an alternative, we wouldn't be just floating it out there.

"The whole planning (application) at Perdiswell is one thing but the club does need certainty and that's why this is being done."

Two weeks ago Councillor Gregson called the attitude of the council's leadership "reprehensible" and accused them of stringing the club along.

Yesterday, he said: "I don't think it really matters who said what and when, the point is the club have been looking for a new home for a long time.

"It's been focusing on Perdiswell for a long time, and it's only now that they've been led to believe it could be elsewhere.

"They've been back in charge for over 18 months (the Tories) and it's only now that they are doing this - they talk about the local opposition around Perdiswell but there'll be opposition to a football stadium anywhere."

He said he agreed with Mr Sharkey at the time that Perdiswell was a good option.

SUPPORTER'S TRUST SAY 'GET ON WITH IT'

THE secretary of Worcester City FC's supporters' trust has urged the council to come to a swift conclusion - saying it has spent enough cash on the Perdiswell bid as it is.

Rob Crean, who has been leading the work, also defended Councillor Gregson by saying he had not promised anything.

"Nobody said we could build at Perdiswell, but what did happen was that we approached Duncan Sharkey and said 'what do you think' about it being there," he said.

"He said 'it's an interesting idea, go away and come back with some more details', so there was clearly general encouragement for what we were doing - that's why we were so gobsmacked by what Sheena Ramsey said.

"If the council said at the time that this would be their approach we'd never have wasted £45,000 and three years of my life.

"Adrian Gregson didn't promise us Perdiswell, but the council did encourage us to go for it."

He added: "If (Councillor Bayliss) is now saying 'if Perdiswell doesn't go through, we'd like to offer you B, C and D' then that would be helpful.

"But if they said 'Perdiswell just isn't an option, here's B, C and D' then it wouldn't be helpful."

Councillor Bayliss has made it clear the Perdiswell application will be an issue for the planning committee to deal with on its own merits, independent of the current city-wide search for alternatives.

He has also insisted Perdiswell is "not off the table at all".

The club has been exiled in Kidderminster since leaving St George's Lane in 2013, with the trust submitting proposals for a 4,000-plus £2 million ground on the park.

It has not got all the cash to build the stadium, but is hoping that by getting the Perdiswell bid approved, it could then be raised.