The Orange Order in Belfast has submitted a compromise route to the RUC and Belfast City Council in an attempt to get permission for its July 12th parade to Ormeau Park.
The RUC has passed the application to the Parades Commission, which the Orange Order refuses to deal with.
The Ulster Unionist Lord Mayor, Mr Bob Stoker, and a delegation of fellow unionist councillors who are also Orange Order members, met the chairman of the Parades Commission, Mr Alistair Graham, and other members of the commission yesterday afternoon to discuss the proposed new route.
Mr Stoker said that instead of entering the park via the Ormeau Road, the lower end of which is largely Catholic, the marchers could enter it from the other side via the more Protestant Ravenhill Road.
This might reduce the tension at the Ormeau Bridge, which is close to the lower Ormeau area, he said.
He said this was "sensible in the light of everything that has happened. People obviously want to make a protest and they want to make a very peaceful protest and then return home again."
The meeting with the Parades Commission was later described as "useful" by an Ulster Unionist councillor, Mr Jim Rodgers. "There was a wide exchange of views, and we told Mr Graham and his colleagues that there was a need to come down with a sensible decision," he said.
A decision from the commission was pending last night.
On Wednesday the Belfast County Grand Lodge announced it was switching the route of Monday's parade away from the traditional route to Edenderry in south Belfast to Ormeau Park. This was to protest against the Parades Commission's earlier refusal to allow the local Ballynafeigh lodge to march through the largely Catholic lower Ormeau Road to join the main Belfast parade.
On Thursday the commission banned the new route, saying the arrival of up to 20,000 Orangemen into an area which is "one of the more contentious interfaces in this city" was bound to bring disruption, tension and damage to fragile community relationships in the area.
Even if the Parades Commission agrees to the new route, the Orangemen will still have to get Belfast City Council's permission to use Ormeau Park for their end-of-march rally.
The council's chief executive, Mr Brian Hanna, received a formal request to use the park from the Belfast County Grand Lodge late yesterday morning.
However, councillors with a good knowledge of council procedure said that was too late for the council to convene the required special meeting to discuss and decide on the application, since council rules required that 72 hours' notice be given for such an application.
Similarly, council sources dismissed speculation that chairmen of committees or sub-committees could make the decision during the holiday season.
Only the chief executive, and not the Lord Mayor, had the delegated authority to give permission to use Ormeau Park, and only for non-contentious purposes, they said.
The former Alliance lord mayor, Cllr David Alderdice, said there "would be a view that the decision to march to Ormeau Park is a politically motivated one, since it can only do harm to the political process in the wider context, i.e., the current discussions on the Way Forward document."
RUC sources expressed some trepidation at the prospect of the Belfast Orangemen's second application to go to Ormeau Park being turned down by the Parades Commission.
They had heard threats by leading Orangemen to "take over the park" if they were refused permission again.
Mr Graham said in a radio interview that future decisions on the Drumcree march would depend on the relationship between the local Orangemen and the Garvaghy Road residents.
He said it depended on the Orange Order continuing the process it started just before this year's Drumcree protest and going through "a quality process of engagement with the Garvaghy Road residents group".
If the order "subsequently get a poor response from the Garvaghy Road residents and if there is evidence - and we'll monitor this very closely - they were prevaricating and weren't trying to seek an accommodation, then that would be very influential in our future decision-making about parades in Portadown."