The developers of National Superdome at Odsal have just six weeks to come back to Bradford Council with its funding plans.

Councillors decided at a stormy City Hall meeting last night that developers of the proposed £200 million project should report back before the next quarterly progress meeting was due.

During the angry debate council leader Councillor John Ryan confirmed that funding for the project, led by Superdome chief executive John Garside, was not in place.

He said: "They are being asked to come back with their funding arrangements. We know they are not in place."

Coun Ryan added that he was now only interested in "hard facts".

In January last year, Mr Garside told the Telegraph & Argus: "The Council has seen our list of investors and users and are very happy".

Outside the meeting Coun Ryan said the council was tied to a two-year legal agreement ending on December 31 to extend the timescale. It would then be reviewed if work had not started.

But Coun Ryan said he personally would not want it renewed at that point.

Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe who was Council leader when the Superdome scheme was selected for Odsal today welcomed the committee's stand.

He said: "The Council should have acted before and there should not have been an extension. I want to see the scheme delivered but if it hasn't happened by December there should be no other extensions.

"All the problems are because of the uncertainty."

Director of Regeneration and Strategic Support David Kennedy was instructed by the committee to bring reports back to the corporate executive sub-committee on March 20 and June 19 on progress and particularly funding.

Superdome chairman Mike Firth said at the meeting that tenancy agreements would have to come first in the process - and then funding would follow. That was "normal practice" he said.

He said there had been numerous funding offers for the grandiose £200 million project.

But Bradford Bulls boss Chris Caisley who attended the packed meeting said the club was now in serious trouble over retaining its Super League status.

He said the timescale meant they would be unable to give sufficient information about the stadium's status when they applied for a Superleague franchise in May.

He told the committee: "If the benefits of Super League are lost to the city, the fault will lie entirely on your own heads."

He praised the stand made by the Telegraph & Argus in demanding real answers for the public about the long delayed scheme.

"We only get action when we go to the paper."

The committee was told by Mr Kennedy that the start date of the scheme would now be mid summer instead of March because of a conflict of interests within the previously appointed agent bank.

Mike Firth, who attended on behalf of the company, was in the firing line of a volley of questions about the funding statements.

Councillors, residents and Mr Caisley said they had all believed funding arrangements were finalised.

Mr Firth said the new delay had been caused by the need to appoint another financial advisor who would choose the funder.

He said Superdome and his own separate company Yorkshire Foods, which had gone into receivership, had both used the New York based Rabo Bank. "It would clearly have been untenable."

Mr Firth said the scale of the project meant timetables were a "hope list" but pointed out that the White Rose Shopping Centre had taken ten years to complete.

"I believe we have all the necessary elements to ensure it will go ahead. We will all be heroes because it will be the greatest thing which has ever happened to Bradford."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.