Guiseley have kicked off an ambitious series of off-pitch developments which will increase the ground’s capacity by 2,000.

Lions chief executive officer Adrian Towers would not reveal the total cost but confirmed the club are spending “some thousands” more than they did in improving Nethermoor’s facilities last summer.

Towers said: “The work has three phases, the first of which is redeveloping the sponsors’ area and directors’ area and catering outlets on the far side of the ground.

“This is the most expensive of the three bits but the areas are not adequate any more or fit for purpose.

“The second phase is putting down terracing and covering the railway end of the ground and the third is doing the same at the 3G end of the ground.

“All this means that we can more safely segregate the supporters and will increase the capacity from 3,000 to 5,000, bringing us into line with what is needed by the Conference – and 5,000 is the minimum required by the Football League.

“This work will be undertaken this summer and will be finished through next season and next summer.”

Towers also revealed what was happening with the Nethermoor pitch.

He said: “We got on with it more quickly at the end of this season than last – in fact, work started within two days of the season finishing.

“We have sand-slitted it, drained it and put down fertiliser so that it will be ready for our first home pre-season friendly against Huddersfield Town on Wednesday, July 17.

“We will have our usual pre-season friendly against Bradford City as well, at home in late July, and will have one other home friendly.

“We also have the usual away friendlies against Nostell Miners’ Welfare and Farsley, plus one other.

“Last season we felt that seven pre-season friendlies was too much, so we will only have six this time – three at home and three away.

“This summer we have more clubs, many of them prestigious, ringing us for friendlies than we have room for.

“This is because we have had players from Football League clubs on loan with us and word has got back to those clubs about how good our playing surface is. That means they are more willing to come to us for friendlies.”