WARRINGTON Town are assessing their options with regards to upgrading their ground.

Thanks to Yellows’ good form on the pitch, they sit third in the Evo-Stik Premier Division, the club are looking at ways to bring their Cantilever Park home up to the standards required to play in the National League North.

Improved press facilities are currently under construction, while extra turnstiles will also be added to bring the number of entrances up from three to six, the minimum required by the league.

However, as chairman Toby Macormac explains, the biggest and most expensive issue is the upgrading of the ground’s floodlights.

Given the financial cost of carrying out the necessary work to meet the FA’s required Grade B criteria, Macormac says the playing budget would be impacted, making any potential National League North campaign “a long, hard season.”

“My biggest concern is the lights, because of the financial implications,” he said “The floodlights read at 120 lux at the minute, but we need it to be at 180 for Conference North and 240 for Conference National.

“We have to look at the lamp upgrade first, which can be done during the season, but if we need a pylon upgrade it would have to happen during the summer.

“With the amount of money we’d need for ground improvements if we did get to the Conference North, every point would be a prisoner.

“It would be a long, hard season.

“There’s loads of little jobs as well, but they are doable jobs. There’s lots of different things for us to look at.”

Other improvements include making both changing rooms larger, but Macormac says increasing the capacity of Cantilever Park is not something they are currently considering.

However, the Yellows chairman did not rule out converting one of the covered standing areas into extra seating.

“We’re at 2,500 capacity right now, but we’re not looking to extend that at the minute,” he said.

“The stand running down the left touchline can take 160 seats, so we could look to put more seats in.

“There will come a point in time where you need to have 500 seats in two locations, within three years of being in the Conference North.

“If you go out and come back in, the clock resets.

“We’ve got the locations, it’s just a case of getting the seats and fitting them.”

Manager Paul Carden was rewarded for a successful first year in charge of Yellows with a new two-and-a-half year contract recently.

Macormac says part of the reason for tying Carden to such a lengthy deal was that he trusted him to work on a potentially reduced budget.

“When I had the conversation with Cards and we hammered out the agreement, the main reason I did a two-and-a-half year deal is that if we went up, we will have a real tough season next year,” he said.

“If he managed to keep us in it, it wouldn’t be fair for his deal to end then.

“He’ll have deserved another crack at it.”