Bark being used as cat litter in kids play area - help!

[Sunnyday14558]

We have a 5m2 play area for our kids in the garden. We've put down bark but the cats (not ours as we don't have any) are using it as a litter tray. Our youngest is still crawling so it's a real concern and is stopping us using the garden.

I'm looking into solutions and rubber chips have come up. Does anyone have experience with these? Do they keep cats away? They're pretty expensive so I don't want to buy them and find cats poo in there anyway.

Or, perhaps there are other ideas for suitable surfaces?

Could you put rubber matting like this Runnen stuff from IKEA down?

Photo added!

We have the same issue but with foxes rather than cats. Haven't been able to find a way to stop them so far.

Both fox and cats can be stopped with suitable fencing. Stick with woodchip and sort your fences.

We use the RSPB approved ultrasonic cat deterrent CATwatch. I recall that we had to move it around a bit now and then in our previous garden - that cat was a bit wily.