It is more than a year since the fanfare that surrounded the Brighton and Hove Council-organised referendum on bringing the Albion home.

More than a year since 67 per cent of voters said the club should go to a new stadium on a greenfield site at Falmer.

More than three years since the Albion played its final game at the old Goldstone ground and went into temporary exile in Kent.

The previous board's decision to sell the Goldstone ground to developers Chartwell Development Properties for £7 million has always angered fans - the club was left without a home and with too little in the kitty to go elsewhere.

Insult was added to injury when the site was sold again to Abbey Life Assurance for £24 million two years later. The club did not see a penny of that money either.

Green councillor Pete West, who sits on the Brighton and Hove Council working group examining the stadium plan, is bitterly critical of both the club and the council.

He said: "I'm keen to see that the Albion have a permanent home that is acceptable to everyone. The club needs to explain itself; it needs to put the public in the picture about exactly where its plans are at.

"The council also needs to explain what role it has been taking as far as leading this project forward since the referendum. They have failed to take a lead and have failed the public in that sense."

The Argus has learned that consultants Vantagepoint - who have been employed to work on the new Wembley and the Millennium Stadium, in Cardiff - have raised serious doubts about whether the project should go ahead in its current form.

Called in by the council to study the club's outline business plan, submitted to the council in February, the consultants say the scheme is unlikely to be a success in its present form.

The chief criticism is that the proposed stadium is too costly for the club.

The report was handed to councillors in May and it is unknown what action the council and its partners, the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex, are taking.

The council said only: "Discussions are ongoing between the club, the council and the two universities to secure the long-term future of the stadium at Falmer."

Fans are understandably perplexed and angry.

One, Simon North, said: "I thought they had shown they had covered all the possibilities regarding getting the money in. I thought they had shown they could support the application to build a stadium."

Another, Terry Burns, said: "I feel very glum. I always anticipated there would be intense opposition from people in the village and surrounding area but I am amazed people, who are pronounced experts, oppose it.

"If Falmer is ruled out we are back to square one."

Stadium announcer John Baine said: "Why should we listen to a bunch of consultants who know nothing about the club and probably have their own agenda anyway?"

Hove MP Ivor Caplin, dismissed the report's findings, saying: "It's a snapshot in time that does not exist today."

The MP, who has already had private discussions on the report with the club and council chief executive Glynn Jones, said the document did not reflect the work being done on the project.

He said: "I think the conclusions are interesting and worthy of consideration as any report is, but I don't think they actually reflect today's position in respect of the application."

Vantagepoint suggests the club should embrace a more modest scheme, not the 22,000 seat community stadium costing £40 million envisioned by the project's backers.

The consultants think the smaller stadium could still go to Falmer if the controversial site, within what could soon be a national park, is still considered the most suitable.

The site, even with a smaller stadium, will continue to draw the ire of an environmental lobby.

Chris Todd, of the Save Our Downs Network, said: "If the club are being over ambitious and going for a scheme that is too big it raises the question whether they should go somewhere else which is more suitable.

"We are not against the Albion finding a home in Brighton or in Hove, but we are against building on a greenfield site on the South Downs."

For people in Withdean, who have been the Albion's hosts since the club came back to Brighton last August, any delays at Falmer signal a longer term relationship with the Seagulls.

The council will this evening vote on whether to extend the club's planning permission to play at Withdean for another two seasons and decide whether to install another 1,000 seats.

Marion Brittain, of the Save Withdean Environmental Action Team, said that the Falmer stadium's troubles were not unexpected.

She said: "We did a fairly careful survey of what assets and capital were available to the Albion in 1998 and we felt there was no way they could afford a stadium of the size they were proposing.

"What we need now is a reassurance from Brighton and Hove Council that it hasn't sold out and that its promise that Withdean will be a temporary home for the Albion will be honoured."