Once again, Bristol City Council gets it wrong. Once again, the city's planning officers prove they have little concept of what it's like to operate and survive in the real world.

Once again, the council has threatened the future of a development which would have been a positive step forward for the city and its reputation.

Instead, the council has once again confirmed Bristol's reputation as a planning disaster-area.

Yesterday, planning officers recommended Bristol City's stadium planning application for approval. Well done. That was clearly the right decision for Bristol.

But, as with so many city council decisions, there was a sting in the tail. Some of the housing in the application – which is worth up to £10 million towards the cost of the development – has been recommended for refusal.

There appears to be no logic to this outcome. Other housing on the site has been recommended for approval.

This non-decision is doubly frustrating for Bristol City. Not just because they now have a potential £10 million funding hole – but also because the objection to the housing appears to be a recent development. The club has been talking to officers for 18 months about this plan and, up until the last two weeks, there has been no indication of any problem with this patch of housing.

Yet it doesn't have to be like this. Across the channel in Cardiff they've managed to build not one but three new stadiums – one for athletics, one for football and one for cricket.

The football stadium has been built on land provided free-of-charge by the Cardiff County Council. Both the football and athletics stadiums have been part-funded by a retail park in which Asda is the main outlet – despite the fact that there is already an Asda store less than three miles away.

And, as if that weren't enough, the same council gave the cricket club a loan of £4.5 million to help them build their new stadium.

Finally, the process from planning application to completed stadiums took just three years.

How weak and ineffectual Bristol City Council looks in comparison.

The councillors on the planning committee will consider Bristol City's application on Wednesday.

Today, the Evening Post calls upon those councillors to show the kind of political backbone that is clearly not shared by their officers.

We ask them to reject this non-recommendation, to approve the planning application in full and to give Bristol City a fighting chance to turn this much-needed stadium development into reality.