A PRESCHOOL is hoping to have its own hall with a garden where youngsters can enjoy play sessions.

Step by Step Preschool, based in Billericay Baptist Church, Perry Street, Billericay, has applied to Basildon Council for permission to build a one-storey building.

The new preschool would be on a piece of land close to West Billericay Community Association’s hall, in Rosebay Avenue, within Hannakins Farm.

The preschool, which is a registered charity run by a committee of parents, has secured a £500,000 grant from Essex County Council, under the Sure Start scheme, to build and furnish a timber-frame building.

If the committee gets permission for the proposal, the hall will be big enough to house 30 youngsters and six members of staff.

Niki Dole, Step by Step’s committee chairman, said having a hall of its own and a garden would make a big difference to the preschool’s teachers and toddlers.

She said: “At the moment, we’re upstairs in the church. It’s not ideal because we don’t have a space to call our own and we don’t have a garden.

“The children have to play in a fenced-off part of the car park.

“Having our own hall and garden would be fantastic.

“It would also make Step by Step more user-friendly for children with disabilities.”

Mrs Dole said Basildon Council had agreed to lease the land to the school if planning permission was granted.

However, members of Billericay Town Council have objected to the proposal, saying it should not be built on open space, but instead on a brownfield site.

John Buchanan, chairman of the town council’s planning committee, said: “We object to the idea of losing open space because it’s precious.

“People can go and exercise their dogs there and enjoy it.

“They should build the preschool on an existing site or within the grounds of an existing school, as other Sure Start centres have done recently.”

Basildon Council is due to make a decision in September.

If permission is granted, Mrs Dole said she hoped the move would be complete by March 2011.