AYR United chairman Lachlan Cameron says he wants to see his club in the top-flight of Scottish football but says he “won’t break the bank” to achieve his ambition.

Last season, United finished fourth in the Scottish Championship when it was prematurely halted due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The club has made several new signings ahead of the new season which starts next month including Joe Chalmers, Jack Baird, Michael Miller, Tom Walsh, Dario Zanatta and Patrick Reading.

United’s chairman Cameron is hopeful that with the new additions to Somerset Park they can challenge for promotion.

Speaking exclusively to the Advertiser he said: “I want the club to be in the Scottish Premiership, but we are not going to break the bank to try and do that and risk going out of business.

“We have put together a decent track record and we would like to improve on that. The 2018-19 season was a bit of a disappointment in the run-in because we faded away and it ended with a flop but it was still good to finish as high as we did. Last season was obviously interrupted by COVID-19 and we were under a new manager and I thought we had a reasonable chance of finishing higher.

“We have put together a decent squad so far this summer and the ultimate goal is to push for promotion.

“I would not say it is a must but we are always looking to progress.

“It took us a while to get over the hump of getting out of League One into the Championship yo yo, then we achieved our first goal of maintaining our place in the Championship and from that we have improved to a position of fourth.

“Finishing in the play-off spots is the low end on the benchmark. If things keep going the way they are then I would say our goal is to finish higher up the table and eventually win the Championship or get promoted via the play-offs.

“Clearly Hearts are in a different stratosphere to what we are but income is not everything. It’s easy on paper to say we are going to get promoted but we have to contend with strong teams so we just need to do our best.”