Why Getting Planning Permission Right Matters More Than Any Piece of Play Equipment

Every year, operators will invest their life savings, their evenings and their hearts into a play venue. The slides get chosen, the branding gets finalised and then, sometimes, the doors close within months because a piece of paperwork was never sorted. Not a safety failure or lack of demand, but a planning permission issue.

It’s one of the least glamorous parts of setting up a play venue, and it’s also one of the most important.

Playtastic, an SEN-friendly soft play centre on Stadium Close in Worksop, is a recent example of how damaging these can be. Run by local couple Sarah and Jason Gascoigne, the venue closed its doors after a dispute with Bassetlaw District Council over the authorised use of its commercial unit. The centre had been designed specifically to give children with special educational needs and disabilities a safe, welcoming space, and its closure prompted frustration from families who had supported a petition for its reopening.

By the couple’s account, they’d invested significant time and money into transforming the unit into something their community valued. None of that is in question. What was in question was the unit’s planning use class allowing for a soft play centre to operate there, and that question surfaced after the business had opened and been reliant on trade.

That’s the part that’s worth noting.

This wasn’t a business that failed to find customers, but a business that built something that people needed, and still had to close because a regulatory box hadn’t been ticked before doors opened rather than after.

Play venues are in an odd regulatory limbo. They look like retail or leisure units from the outside, but the change of use, occupancy numbers, fire strategies and accessibility considerations can be closer to a public assembly building. As easy to assume that just because a unit has been a warehouse, a gym or a shop previously, it’s ready to become a play centre. In practice, a change of use application, building control sign off and sometimes listed building or licensing considerations all need to be worked through, and interpreted slightly differently by each local authority.

Get it wrong, and the consequences aren’t limited to a fine. They will include:

Forced closure after opening – the single most costly outcome, as fit-out costs, marketing spend and staff have already been committed.

Loss of goodwill with families, and the local community, where a venue serves a specific need, as Playtastic did for SEN families.

Personal financial exposure for owner-operators who’ve self-funded the build, and reputational damage that follows a brand even if they do reopen in a different location. None of these are really about the soft play equipment. They’re about the unglamorous groundwork that must be done before a single ball pit can be installed.

For anyone setting up a play venue, the regulatory checklist will typically cover:

• Planning permission/change of use – ensuring the unit use allows for a play venue, and applying for change of use if it doesn’t.
• Building regulations approval – considering structural changes, fire safety, means of escape and accessibility.
• Fire risk assessment – required before opening, and central to occupancy numbers.
• Play equipment compliance – meeting British and European safety standards (BS EN 1176/1177).
• Local licensing requirements – food hygiene registration, music licensing and anything specific to the local authority.

Individually, none of these are complicated, but together and against a deadline, they’re perfect for being deprioritised in favour of aspects of the project that seem more like progress until, as in Worksop, they cause closure.

This is why, when we work with operators on new venues, the regulatory groundwork isn’t something for the client to do alone. Over three decades of designing, manufacturing, installing and maintaining play environments – more than 1,000 projects across 20-plus countries – we’ve sat across the table from enough councils and building control officers to know where these applications typically hit a wall, and what they need to see to be able to move cleanly.

That’s why guiding clients through planning, building regulations and compliance is part of how we work with every new venue, and at no extra charge. It’s what you can expect from a supplier that’s been supplying this space since 1994 and wants your venue to still be open in five years, not just impressively fitted out on opening day.

If you’re planning a new play venue, or worried that an existing one might have a gap in its paperwork, it’s worth having a conversation before it becomes a Worksop headline. Get in touch and let’s talk through what your unit needs before committing to anything.