We have a vision - childrens indoor/outdoor play park. What do you think?

[northerner]

Some land near us is up for sale. What do you think to this?

A play park with indoor and outdoor facilities aimed at the under 15's with the following facilities:

Indoor play area (quality soft play, ball pool, slides etc)for little ones

Mini ten pin bowling/football tables/pin ball etc for the older ones

Excellent cafe serving homemade organic food such as homemade burgers, fresh fruit smoothies, cottage pie etc. We envisage a 'diner' type area for the older kids to hang out.

Outdoor possibly a skate park, wooden adventure play fort/climbing activities and the usual swings/slides etc

Is there anthing like this near you?
Would you use this facility?
How much would you pay as an entrance fee?

Sounds fantastic! Would have to make sure young ruffians didn't take it over, but great idea.

Depends on what there was to do for DS's age group as to entrance fee - and how expensive the delicious food was going to be

No there is nothing like this near me, but i wish there was.

I would definately come. Where abouts are you?

Softplay aside, there i a play area similar to this where I live (Bristol). It has 3 zones (skate/bike park, mahoosive climbing zone for older kiddies and a play park for smaller kids).

It is brilliant! There are water pumps, the kdis build dams, all the surfaces are either rubber or sand. The skate park is completely seperate to the rest of it. There is a cafe which serves filter coffee and snacks so not as comprehensive a menu as what you are suggesting so yours could only be better!

One other thing, because there are older kids there, there is CCTV and tannoy and there are also security guards on duty.

That sounds interesting - what's it called and I'll see if it has a website.

Sounds Fab!

Would love there to be somewhere like that near me!

have a look at this - someone I know started it up recently. Not outdoor but might help with ideas and prices etc.

Did you see the risking it all where they set up a soft play centre, I think one of the problems they had was the age range of the children? Also you would need to think about the weather/seasonal aspect to the outdoor area. Having said that though, I would love a maintained outdoor park (I love the one in kensington gardens) and somewhere with decent food for toddlers.

I love the idea of mixed indoor/outdoor, and if it were near me I would definitely go.
Crucial to have good cleaning, IMO. At our local soft-play centre a friend of mine found a used tampon down the side of one of the soft-play mats, and I have regularly spotted plasters, tissues etc that have been there for more than a week.

Have a look at Chatsworth House Farm Park, as their outdoor area is great!
Seeing your post reminded me of the lady who was on TV last year, was it C4? she brought/rented a huge warehouse down south somewhere and turned it into a giant play centre, anyone know who it was to help out here?

Sounds fab. I took my ds (3) for his birthday to a place like this today so a lot of niggles are fresh in my mind; areas I can see need a lot of improvement.

Despite being a separate area for under 5's, a lot of the litle ones were able to get out of the safety gate into the main play area and vice versa. If there are going to be older teenagers (which i think is a FAB idea as ours only goes up to age 12) it should be off limits to say, under 12's. Older kids love things like ten pin bowling and the like so that would be a great idea too.

Love the cafe idea with decent food - ours served nuggets with chips and chips with chips and horrid looking squashes and cakes and sweets and crisps and....you get the picture!

Out door skate thing also good idea, teenagers are also notorious for just wanting to chill!

Yes, we would use it, but probably only if there were some sort of supervision to ensure everything was kept under reeasonasble control and order (without being heavy). I would want to know my kids were safe if I were to send them there unsupervised. How would you check ages of kids coming in? ID? Take their word for it? How about older than 15, say up to 16/17, before they are wanting to go to the pub and other more adult pursuits?

As for cost...hmm not sure. Would you charge for separate areas or one charge regardless of what was used? Off the top of my head I would be happy to pay maybe £4.00ish for toddlers to use the soft play area and a tad less for the teenagers - maybe £3 for a set time?

A friend of mine had this idea about 12 years ago and I wish I had the money then to do something like this; I would have loved it. You are so lucky to have this opportunity!

anchovies has it, risking it all!! see if you can find it on the tv co's website?

Oh yes the cleaning aspect was the most offputting for us. Whole tables went uncleaned for more than half an hour after being vacated, mushed crisps all over the floor where toddlers were crawling, bits of chips and plastic cutlery. I would be big on keeping everywhere scrupulously clean and tidy!

Thanks guys. Thanks for the link Kbear - looks interesting.

Here's thwe web address:

www.hengrovepark.com/index.html

Forogt to add, taht if it had a softplay zone it would be fantastic!

sounds great. also sounds like a huuuuge investment. One thing that's important for me at any place is how crowded they let it get.