IT takes time and money to get a major development off the ground - especially one involving public finances.

Many people will be shocked at the revelation that over the last year City of York Council has spent almost £5 million on the community stadium without a brick being laid.

It wouldn’t be fair, however, to say that nothing at all has been achieved.

A substantial chunk of money - about £1.5 million - went on the city’s new athletics track, which has been a real success.

A further £1.6 million was spent on expanding the Monks Cross Park & Ride. Demolishing the old Huntington Stadium cost more than £400,000, and the city council also contributed £200,000 towards a new 3G sports pitch at York St John University.

All these represent real progress: just not on the stadium itself. The city council also had to contribute towards the cost of archaeological work on site.

Nevertheless the fact remains that, while substantial sums have been spent on consultant and legal fees, 13 years after a joint stadium for York City and the York City Knights was first mooted in 2003, we seem almost no further forward.

It is a project that has been dogged by delay after delay - with the latest blow being the news that cinema chain Vue plans to seek a judicial review over the council’s planning decision to allow a larger multiplex cinema than formerly approved.

There are mutterings in some quarters that the stadium project will never now happen.

Such cynicism must be resisted. This project is far too important - and has had too much public money invested in it - to be allowed to fail.