MORTON stadium director Crawford Rae has revealed the club are planning £25,000 of upgrades at Cappielow this summer.

Newly-promoted Ton are set to host large travelling supports from the likes of Rangers, Hibs, and St Mirren in next season’s Championship.

According to Rae, this will require significant improvements to the Wee Dublin End area of the ground.

He told the Tele: “At the moment we’ve got roughly £25,000 of general repairs around the ground that we’re doing for next year.

“For example, we’re overhauling the toilets down at the Dublin End. That’s going to cost £15,000.

“We’re having to redo all the nosings to the stairs in the Dublin End, or we’re having to repair them.

“There’s a plethora of things, just general maintenance in that area [of the ground] that has been neglected over the last couple of years because we haven’t been using it.

“We’re aware that there are things to do there.” In December 2008, Morton purchased the roof from St Mirren’s East Stand for around £50,000 with the intention of erecting it over the Wee Dublin End.

Planning permission was originally sought in June 2010, while a building warrant application was lodged in 2013 with the club challenging for promotion to the top flight. The project was shelved after Allan Moore’s men finished second behind Partick Thistle and failed to win a place in the Premier League.

When asked about the prospect of it being revisited this summer with the nature of next season’s Championship in mind, Rae said it is not on the club’s immediate agenda.

However, he added that there have been discussions with regard to its future and that it could be a possibility for season 2016-17 depending on how next term pans out financially.

Rae explained: “We’re relieved to be back in the Championship. I know we let the supporters down with being relegated but we’ve come straight back up again. We had a good season [on the park], and we’re really looking forward to next year, but we’ve just come out of one the worst seasons financially in a long time.

“Things are obviously very, very tight, and because we’ve been losing money, there is no cash flow.

“But we have discussed the stand — we have had a couple of discussions regarding that — and we’re not going to do it for next season.

“We have discussed the possibility [of erecting the stand] if things are good next year. It’s still active as far as planning application is concerned.

“It may have lapsed but everything is still in place. We have everything — we’ve had the quotes — but it’s still going to cost £250,000.

“Where do you get that money from? There’s no one beating a path to our door to help out in that respect. So, we would have loved to have done it for next year but it just isn’t possible. We just don’t have the money to do that right now.” After taking a financial hit in the third tier, Rae expects to see an improvement in the Ton’s circumstances next term and says the aim is to break even.

He added: “[Director] Nick [Robinson] has done quite a lot of work looking at attendances, and what clubs had experienced last year compared to their average the year before.

“The figures certainly come out well. We know what Forfar received in terms of gate income from their games against Rangers when they were in their league.

“You know, they built a hospitality extension just with the money they had got from the Rangers game, more or less.

“We reckon it’s worth another £100,000 with Rangers in the league. The additional gate income it’s going to generate, with people wanting to see them at Cappielow, and the travelling support.

“One of the problems is that folk automatically think that is £100,000 profit we will make and where are we going to spend it.

“But we just lost £350,000 last year — that’s around £1,000 a day — and we can’t continue the way we’ve been going on. Our budget next year has to be based on breaking even.

“The downside is we’ve been losing money, but we’re hoping next year is going to be a good year and if we were to break even, we’d be delighted. If that were to happen, we would be seriously considering putting the stand up the year after. Whether that comes off or not, I don’t know.”