In August, Peterborough Town Sports Club bosses were criticised for asking too much for land earmarked for Peterborough's superhospital.

At the time, Peterborough City Council leader Ben Franklin said the sports club's £5 million price tag was too high, and accused it of holding the health trust to ransom.

But on Tuesday, the two companies competing for the contract to build the superhospital, MediCo and Progress Health, put their plans on display at an exhibition at Peterborough Town Hall, in Bridge Street.

Closer examination of the proposals has revealed MediCo's plans do not infringe on land owned by the sports club.

Progress Health are currently in private discussions with the sports club over what is believed to be a small area of the club's land.

The sports club's land had been needed to allow for parking spaces, but designers for both companies have now incorporated multi-storey car parks into their schemes, which need much less land to build on.

Angela Broekhuizen, project clinician for the Greater Peterborough Health Investment Plan, said: "MediCo are no longer proposing to use any of the sports club's land. However, Progress Health are in discussions with the sports club, and will negotiate any deal independently."

The cricket club, which plays in the grounds of the sports club at Bretton Gate, Peterborough, was prepared to move to the proposed site of the new Deacon's Academy, off Grimshaw Road, Peterborough, but to do so, would have required the money from the sale of the disputed land.

Peterborough Town Cricket Club chairman Brian Howard said: "While it's a shame it looks like we won't be moving to a superb facility at the new Deacon's Academy, it is far from the end of the world.

"We already boast a top-class venue which has a secure 70-year lease and we are a key part of a successful and progressive sports club.

"Cricket-wise, the ground has never looked better and we have a youth set-up that is the envy of all other clubs in the east, so there is little to get downbeat about.

"Our current facilities are excellent and we can now concentrate on making the decisions which will help improve the set-up."

A Peterborough Town Sports Club spokesman declined to comment until a decision on the superhospital design is made, due to be confirmed by March 2005.

The centrepiece of both sets of plans is a £250 million, 762-bed superhospital, due to be built on the current Edith Cavell Hospital site, in Bretton Gate, Bretton.

There will also be a 102-bed purpose-built mental health unit and a care centre, sited at Peterborough District Hospital's Fenland Wing, in Thorpe Road.