BARROW AFC have quickly erased worries the capacity of their Holker Street ground would see them excluded from the National League play-offs.

Last week, the Bluebirds were given three weeks to come up with council-approved plans to increase the capacity of the stadium from 4,400 to more than 5,000.

However, the work has been done in seven days, after a new safety assessment of the ground revealed an existing maximum attendance already in excess of the necessary figure.

The Football League have already written to Barrow to confirm they will be allowed to participate in the play-offs and be eligible for promotion the League Two this season.

AFC chief executive Austin Straker confirmed that a survey carried out by National League recommended qualified ground safety assessor John Newsham on Tuesday added more than 600 to the capacity, without the need for new crush barriers to be installed at the Holker Street End.

Straker believes the problem arose because the maximum figure had not been recalculated despite minor work being carried out at the ground over the past decade.

“We've received notification from the English Football League that our application based on the recalculations we have done recently, and the work that had previously been done, has been accepted and everything is good to go,” said Straker.

“The good news – and is shows how long it must be since the calculations were last done – is that our capacity, when it has been recalculated for the first time in maybe 20 years, is actually more than we were told when we took the club on – it's over 5,000, without doing anything further to the ground.

“We had a committee who came and went through things on Tuesday. They came back with the initial findings, we tweaked them a little bit.

“Andrew Casson had done some pre-calculations, which we had already checked, and with everything we had already done, between Andrew and myself, we thought 'we don't get this – there's plenty of room for a lot more people'.

“We waited for what the assessment said, but all of the figures were improved on what we had been led to believe in the past.

“There have been a lot of little bits of work done since the last time it was calculated, but it has never been recalculated. We haven't been able to find any records since the late 1990s.

“When you have your safety meeting every year (with the council), unless the club can prove something has changed, then you stick with the figures from previous years, and it seems that has just been going on and on, when there has been some work done.

“We're very grateful to everyone who has been involved. We're still waiting to hear from the structural engineer, but the good news is we can start winning matches and not worry about whether we will be allowed into the play-offs.”

When they were told of the new requirements to have full plans and capacity assessments in place in order to be eligible for the play-offs, Barrow engaged the services of local engineering M&P Gadsden to carry out a survey of the Holker Street End and draw up plans for new crush barriers.

Those plans are expected to be with the club by the end of Friday, but they are no longer required for the purposes of being allowed in the play-offs should AFC finish in the National League top five at the end of the season.

“The work on the crush barriers would just increase the capacity further,” added Straker. “We have two figures – one as the ground is now, which is sufficient to pass 5,000, and then another with the work carried out, which puts it up by about 600 to nearer 6,000 than 5,000.

“We haven't received the structural report yet from the engineers, which I would expect either by Friday, based on what he said to us.

“But the news has already come back to us from the Football League, that irrespective of what that shows and what plans we have, the recalculation has proved that the ground is bigger than we were led to believe it was.”