BOSSES at Oxford City Football Club are planning a new 150-seat stand as the club pushes for promotion to a higher league.

Replacing a temporary structure, the facility would boost the number of seats at the ground to 500, bringing it into line with requirements to compete in the Vanarama National League – the fifth tier of English football.

The club is currently in the Vanarama National League South.

Chairman Brian Cox said the expansion could lead to further improvements at the ground in Marston.

He said: “We are second in the league and there is no doubt we are looking for promotion. In any league that is tough, but the higher you go the greater capacity you need in the stands.

“If we get promotion then we will have to look at what extra can be done to the ground and we may also look for new players, so it is very positive.”

Mr Cox, whose role as chairman also includes a lot of maintenance and gardening work for the club, hopes permission for the stand will be secured from Oxford City Council in the coming months.

He added: “We have got a great little club going here with more than 50 teams running and plenty of work with the community. It’s fantastic to be part of that and to be thinking about expansion.”

To meet the requirements for promotion, the club must demonstrate its increased capacity to the Football Association (FA) by March 31.

It must be able to provide 500 seats under cover and show potential to increase the capacity to 4,000.

This would be achieved by building the new stand at the north eastern corner of the ground, as well as extending terraced areas at the southern end.

The stand would include space for wheelchair spectators. In its application, the club told the city council: “[It would] contribute to the ongoing success, growth and sustainability of National League football and grassroots development, to the benefit of the local football community in Oxford.”

But some concerns have been raised, with Old Marston Parish Council warning it represented an “overdevelopment of site” and that it would cause “parking issues on-site and in the surrounding area”.

City councillor Louise Upton, who sits on the committee of neighbouring sports facility OXSRAD, said: “[The club] must give much greater attention to parking provision. There are already problems with football traffic filling up the OXSRAD car park to the detriment of its users.’’