CHARLTON’S planning application to increase The Valley’s capacity to 31,000 will go before Greenwich Council this Thursday evening with club chief executive Peter Varney predicting that the outcome hangs in the balance.

Mr Varney went as far as to say that getting it passed by the council would be "a major exercise".

The application is the first phase of an ambitious plan to boost the ground’s eventual capacity to 40,000. Only then will Charlton be capable of competing with the elite of London’s Premier League clubs.

"I don’t think that anyone at the club will relax until we know the outcome," he confessed. "I think it’s in the balance because we know that residents will be against it because it represents further growth of the stadium.

"But we believe we catered for that because we’re putting up a green wall at the back of the stand which is environmentally friendly.

"We’ve got a transport plan to make sure that we don’t have increased traffic coming to the area but the bottom line is that if this club is to grow and compete we have to get to 31,000 quickly. It’s an absolute priority.

"That’s in the interim before going on to 40,000, which is the ultimate aim. With the arrival of the Valley Express coach service from Kent, Essex and East Sussex, which came into being towards the end of last season when the side were not playing particularly well, we were still filling the ground and bringing in remarkable numbers of people."

Mr Varney said that another extra 4,000 fans, buying tickets, shirts and food from the club’s kiosks would provide additional income that would go into manager Alan Curbishley’s transfer budget.

"It would make us a bigger club which would attract better players. It’s all a part of a cycle and we must keep that momentum going because we’ve grown at an enormous rate these last few years and we don’t intend to stop now."