Plans to build an "Eden Project of the North" in Bradford city centre look certain to be scrapped - and it could be built in Leeds instead.

The team behind the Spice! project - a tourist attraction and education centre celebrating herbs and spices - have admitted defeat in their efforts to persuade Bradford Council to back the multi-million-pound scheme.

Talks have now begun with council officials in Leeds, as well as Liverpool, York and East Lancashire (Burnley and Blackburn), with a view to locating the ambitious project there. Today artist's impressions were due to be unveiled of an iconic building, including a turf roof, planned for the heart of the scheme wherever it may be located.

Project director Jan Smithies, who has been working on bringing her vision to reality for several years, admitted last year that she was having to look at alternative cities because it was feared Bradford Council would not back the scheme.

With ambitions to open the project by 2008 at the latest, it now seems she has given up in her efforts to persuade her home city to back her plans.

"We are at the stage where we have got a business plan that's not site-specific," she said. "We are ready to move in terms of pots of funding.

"We are still happy to speak to Bradford and consider Bradford, but they have not responded to us.

"We need to widen our net and people from other councils have been getting in touch with us now for some time."

Miss Smithies has already linked up with several local businesses keen to become partners in the scheme.

She said Spice! would have brought major economic benefits to the district. Officials at the successful Eden Project in Cornwall had enthusiastically backed the scheme.

Now Liverpool has suggested hosting Spice! as part of its International Garden Festival site in the city centre which will provide the hub of its activity when it is the European Capital of Culture in 2008.

Leeds City Council, meanwhile, has identified a plot of land in the Holbeck part of the city which it believes is suitable. Discussions with York and East Lancashire are at an earlier stage.

"We want to see this happen in the North," said Miss Smith-ies. "And we want to keep a connection with Bradford because just about everyone who has worked on the project is from Bradford. But we have already changed the name from Spice Bradford to the Spice Project."

Miss Smithies said "certain politicians and officers" at Bradford Council had been receptive to the idea but there had been insufficient overall support.

Initial hopes that the former Odeon site in the city centre could host the scheme had already appeared doomed and alternative plots in the city and district had been looked at.

But Miss Smithies said potential funding partners for the scheme needed the local authority to be 100 per cent committed and there was little sign that would happen in Bradford.

"I am disappointed but what I am very glad about is that other places can see the potential so we are confident that it will happen somewhere," she said.

"We know there is support for it in Bradford but if there is not support from the biggest bodies like the Council, Bradford Centre Regeneration and Bradford Vision, then we are stuck."

No one at Bradford Council was available for comment today.