An expansion of Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield Stadium is set to start this week after construction firm Carillion signed a £75m contract to carry out work on the main stand.

The two parties yesterday (8 December) finalised the deal that will see designs by architecture practice KSS brought to fruition, increasing the capacity of the stadium to 54,000.

Work to add 8,500 seats to the Main Stand – part of a larger £260m (US$426m, €331m) plan to transform the area around Anfield into a mixed-use leisure hub – is scheduled for completion during the 2016/2017 football season.

The expanded Main Stand, which will become one of the largest all-seater stands in Europe's top divisions, will comprise three tiers, with the existing lower tier re-profiled to accommodate a widened player tunnel, new team benches, media platform and wheelchair viewing positions.

The club also has outline planning permission to boost the number of seats in the Anfield Road Stand by 4,800, a move which would lift overall stadium capacity to almost 59,000.

Proposals for the Anfield leisure hub feature the creation of a wide avenue through the adjacent Stanley Park and a new public square area with a memorial to the 96 Liverpool fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster of 1989. Also included is a new primary school, health centre, 250 new homes and a 100-bedroom hotel as well as a new business hub.

Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson, a key supporter of the proposals, said: "The start of work on the Main Stand will mark the beginning of a project which will deliver huge benefit to the city of Liverpool and to the communities in and around Anfield. I'm delighted that we have reached this decisive turning point in the history of Anfield."

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