Queenstown Lakes Mayor Clive Geddes joined dedicated parents and supporters for an information evening on Wednesday in the Arrowtown Community Preschool.
The meeting coincided with the preschool centre's survey, which revealed that 60 out of 90 Arrowtown preschool aged children could not access early childhood education.
The group heard that the existing sessional preschool, on the corner of Durham and Caernarvon Sts, has 60 children aged 3 to 5 attending and 46 over the age of 2 are on the waiting list.
Of the 46 waiting, 16 are aged over 3.
ABC Arrowtown Montessori in Wiltshire St has a waiting list of 111 children.
Community preschool head teacher Jane Foster told the Queenstown Times there was not the capacity to meet the Government's push to give 3 or 4-year-old children 20 hours of free early childhood education a week.
Up to 30 youngsters are receiving 7.5 hours a week, 13 are getting 15 hours, 12 are benefiting from 19 hours and only five were at the centre for 21.5 hours per week.
"We have to prove to the Ministry of Education there is a need for another centre in the area," Ms Foster said.
"That's why we need parents and the community to support it by registering children's names, even babies and pregnant women, to give an overall indication of the need.
"The starting age just keeps rising. It will be 3 by the end of the year."
Arrowtown architect Juliet Pope, a mother of a baby, preschool and school-aged children, is working voluntarily with a professional group to develop the proposed centre.
"The Ministry of Education has a 650sq m site adjacent to Arrowtown School earmarked for an early childhood community based centre," Ms Pope said.
"It can take a maximum of 30 children - 0 to 2 in one designated area and 2 to 3year-olds in another, with a staff room upstairs to maximise the outside play area.
"The site's tight but it can meet all the regulations for that number of children."
The survey, to end on June 18, would help finalise the proposed L-shaped design.
