A move away from Priestfield Stadium may not necessarily be the answer as Gillingham look to climb the leagues.

Gillingham chairman Brad Galinson has noted with interest the plans of their League 2 rivals Stockport County, who are proposing a gradual upgrade of their Edgeley Park ground, to develop their current home in line with their success on the pitch.

Moving out of Priestfield was always the ambition of former chairman Paul Scally - with numerous locations looked at over the years - but Mr Galinson quite likes their current home and sees potential in it.

Stockport, who are riding high at the top of League 2 and like the Gills have ambitions to climb towards the Championship, while simultaneously upgrading their ground and increasing capacity from 10,900 to just over 18,000.

There was early talk of a stadium move when Mr Galinson first took over but he’s now had the chance to see that the Gills have something good going for them already.

He said: “I have gone to quite a few away stadiums, they all have their own personalities, some of them are tiny.

“When I was looking for an investment one among many criteria was ‘Do you own your stadium? Is your stadium scalable? Is your catchment area scalable?

“There are tons of them that are nice cute little clubs but you would have to do a massive rebuild, a relocation, to actually progress with them.

“What we have - Town End aside - is actually quite an impressive stadium. It could definitely take us easily into League 1 with some improvements. You can argue it is the start of something.

“Stockport are taking their existing ground and building it up. It is a really interesting investment criteria. You can use Priestfield and grow with it. What we have is quite special, not to mention The Factory (supporters’ bar) and The Great Hall (banqueting facility), most of our league stadiums don’t have anything like that.”

Gills’ stadium capacity has been reduced to just under 10,000 with the top half of the Town End unusable on safety grounds but it’s an area that could be modernised when the need arises.

What could hinder hope of expanding the current stadium significantly is the ground’s location and a lack of parking facilities which has previously led the council to put a limit on the capacity.

Managing director Joe Comper commented on current plans, saying: “In terms of stadium improvements there are one or two things we are looking at doing and seeing if it is financially viable but we don’t want to promise things that we can’t deliver.

“The (Town End) stand is a good example. It doesn’t make sense to do anything with it financially, we are not filling it every week. The bottom half is perfectly fine and Charlton were the only team who have come here, in the FA Cup, and could have sold more tickets.

“One game a season isn’t worth the cost to do anything with that stand. Do we like looking at it? Not particularly, but at this moment in time does it make sense to do anything with it? No. It is that kind of thinking we go through all of the time.

“If we are going to spend money on anything it needs to make sense, it needs to take the club forward, not just a vanity project, which is basically what they would be at this moment.”

The Gills are averaging crowds of just over 6,000 at Priestfield this season, with visiting clubs bringing on average just over 300 fans. Promotion-chasing Crewe had an away following of less than 300 and few away clubs require the Town End as the corner of the Gordon Road Stand is more than enough.

Mr Comper said: “The plans we do have, the fans won’t really see, we are updating things like the players’ lounge, we are looking to try and do the changing rooms, improvements in those areas.

“Last year was about building a foundation for the club to succeed and that was largely revenue-based concepts, this year now it is bringing the culture and the feeling around the place, the football needs to catch up.

“We need to give an environment for those elite athletes, that’s what why are, we need to give them an environment where they can flourish, like we have off the field.”

Gillingham, meanwhile, are now selling season tickets for 2024/25 on general sale following a priority window for existing holders to claim their seat. It’s looking like League 2 football for another season.

Last season the club broke their all-time record for sales and are hoping for good numbers again although Mr Galinson admits it’s harder now to attract new fans in similar numbers.

He said: “It would be great to break the record again, one of the things is that last year when we went on sale, we had the diehard fans, they were the only ones left. We had 100% of them and then we more than doubled that base, many of whom came back after a long time or it’s their first time.

“The tricky part now is that the club hasn’t been in a situation where more than half of the base of season ticket holders are, for the first time, being asked to renew but we are cautiously optimistic.”