A gym club that has never had a permanent home hopes to end its 30 years of wandering after revealing plans for a purpose-built facility.

Youngsters that use Prestwood's successful Abbey Gym Club have to practice their moves in a school hall that's not big enough to house a full-sized gymnastics floor area.

And with the club currently heavily oversubscribed, with more than 300 children on its waiting list, the committee has launched plans to build a home of its own in the village near to Sprinters Leisure Centre.

The proposals - which have been more than a year in the making - have been met with a largely positive response from residents, and a formal planning application is set to be made to Chiltern District Council imminently.

Club chairman Sue Egan said: "People have generally been supportive. The feedback has been good, we're really pleased.

"We've had loads of people saying, 'This is exactly what the village needs'. We are going to be building something for the children.

"We originally presented our plans to the Prestwood Village Association AGM last year and it's taken a year to get everything in place so we're ready to submit the plans. It's been quite a journey over the last year."

The club currently holds its classes at Prestwood Junior School in Clare Road three times a week, but members say it has outgrown its surroundings.

Mrs Egan said: "We've been really welcome for the last 20 or so years and the school have been absolutely brilliant with us. The major problem we've got is the school hall is smaller than a gymnastics floor area, so we can't practice properly on a full sized gym floor. The lack of space is a big problem.

"We can only have it after school hours, so we have to set up and put away. That takes 30-45 minutes before and after each session, which causes a lot of wear and tear on the equipment and volunteers' backs. It takes so much time and effort.

"We've got 240 children in the club at the moment and almost 300 on our waiting list. We really would like to get as many of the 300 into our club as soon as possible, so they can start to enjoy gymnastics.

"Despite all those problems we go to local competitions and usually come away with a really good haul of medals."

The majority of club members are from the Prestwood area but some come from Aylesbury, Amersham and High Wycombe to take part in classes.