A FORMER mortgage designer who quit his job to run a 20-member gymnastics club is about to take its membership to 600.

Russell Smith, who took on Wantage Gymnastics Centre three years ago, has already increased membership to 350.

Now, with a waiting list of 600 girls, he is preparing to move the club from its one-room warehouse to a bespoke new facility.

The 35-year-old, who lives in Newbury, said: "This is going to be huge.

"The new building we are going to is a proper place with proper rooms and heaters.

"Our capacity at the moment is 350 but when we move it's going to be 600 and could probably go to 1,000.

"This is the next big stepping stone for our club."

Wantage Gymnasts was formed 40 years ago this year by PE teacher Margaret Clement.

Over the next three decades she ran the club at Wantage Leisure Centre, steadily growing it with charitable donations and volunteer help to a membership of 120, sending a steady stream of young gymnasts to regional and national championships.

But after Mrs Clement stepped down as head coach ten years ago, training sessions had to be cut to one a week, and membership dwindled again to just a few dozen.

Mr Smith, meanwhile, started his working life designing mortgages for Nationwide.

Then, on a trip to Africa some six years ago, he met Wantage gymnast Jade Sheppard.

She took her new friend along to a gymnastics centre where Mr Smith discovered a passion for the sport.

He recalled: "I thought 'I could make a living out of this', so I left my job in finance and became a qualified coach in primary schools.

"It was all about job satisfaction: the finance industry is a bit cut-throat to say the least, whereas working with the children you get something back."

Three years ago Ms Sheppard introduced Mr Smith to the ailing Wantage Gymnasts, meeting for just a few hours each week at the leisure centre.

He signed up as a volunteer and six months later took on the mantle of head coach, working alongside Ms Sheppard.

Realising the potential demand for gymnastics in the area, he found the club new home in a unit at W&G Industrial Estate in East Challow just outside Wantage.

The facilities were far from state-of-the-art, but the club finally had its own space they could use when they wanted, and in two years membership rocketed to 350 girls aged from 18 months old up to 17.

Now he has applied for planning permission to move into a building twice the size down the road at the White Horse Business Park in Stanford in the Vale.

After the moving he is also hoping to employ two new full-time coaches.

Vale of White Horse District Council is aiming to make a decision on his application by November 15.