The Rugby Football Union have unveiled their plans to re-develop Twickenham at a cost of £80m.

The RFU plans to install a wraparound roof, raise the capacity to 82,000, build a 200-bed 4-star hotel, health club and leisure centre and a 400-seat performing arts centre for local community use as they look to make England's home an impressive centre piece to their bid to host the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

"We believe it will be the best rugby stadium in the world," Francis Baron, chief executive of the Rugby Football Union decalred at the press conference to unveil the plans.

"Rugby is becoming too dependent on television revenues. This will diversify those revenues."

"This is an opportunity to make this stadium into a world-class facility and I am as excited by this as any I have been involved in," added stadium-director Richard Knight, who has been at Twickenham for a year after working on the Sydney Olympic Stadium project.

An initial planning application will be submitted today with the response expected before the end of the year. Some of that time will be used for local consultation where it is expected they will meet some opposition.

Fourteen houses in the shadow of the South Stand will have to be demolished to allow the new construction to advance almost to the limit of RFU land. The RFU already owns 12 of the houses and will build 24 more in the North car park, 14 for staff and the rest for affordable housing needs.

But Richmond Council leader Tony Arbour predicted there would be objections from local residents opposed to anything which increases disruption and traffic around the stadium.

Plans for a hotel will also be opposed by locals, he said, who are prepared to accept Twickenham as a rugby venue but are against more commercial expansion.

Arbour told the Evening Standard, "We won't permit anything in their plans which is more of a curse than a blessing. Only if there are overwhelming benefits for the community are we likely to consider the plans favourably.

"The crucial aspect for us is transport and policing and we would expect improvements to be in place before the new facilities are opened.

"This scheme is going to be controversial but we have to find the right balance and the truth is that the council does not want to lose the RFU."

Work could start in June next summer after the current season is completed. The new ground would be fully in use for the autumn international programme of 2004 when England will expect to play three Tests.

The 2003 Varsity match in December will have a ground capacity of 65,000. That will rise to 70,000 for the Six Nations' matches in the Spring of 2004.

Trials will take place this season on extending the free bus service from the ground to six more stations outside of Twickenham in the hope of easing the congestion in the area after games. Already 15,000 spectators use these services.

If approved by the council, the redevelopment will complete the RFU's 13-year modernisation programme and join up the ground's other three stands which have already been refurbished at a cost of £87m.