Soft play centres: parking demand and means of escape

Soft play schemes fail on two things, and neither of them is the play equipment. The first is parking, because the peak happens on a wet Saturday in February when the rest of the estate is empty and nobody surveyed it. The second is occupancy, because the number of people the building can safely hold is often lower than the business plan assumes, and that number then becomes a planning condition.

Work out both before signing a lease on a shed.

Use class for indoor play and leisure

Indoor sport, recreation or fitness sits within Class E(d) of the Use Classes Order, provided it is not motorised and is principally for visitors or customers of the premises. Indoor play centres generally fall there, which means a unit already in a Class E use can change to soft play without planning permission.

Most soft play centres are not in Class E units. They are in industrial or warehouse buildings, because that is where the floor to ceiling height and the floor plate are, and those buildings are usually in general industrial or storage and distribution use. That change is a material change of use and needs permission.

Establish the lawful existing use before anything else. A unit that was last lawfully used for storage is a different application from one that was last used as a trade counter with ancillary retail, and the evidence for that sits in rates records, leases and previous decisions rather than in the agent's particulars.

Locating in an industrial unit and policy objections

The objection will usually be the loss of employment floorspace. Many authorities protect designated employment areas through a local plan policy that resists non-employment uses, sometimes with a marketing requirement attached: evidence that the unit has been marketed for employment use at a realistic rent for a defined period without a taker.

Read that policy carefully and start the marketing early if it applies, because a retrospective marketing exercise carries very little weight. Where the unit sits outside a designated employment area, the argument is far easier, and a leisure use in a mixed estate is often welcomed for the activity it brings.

Highways will have their own view. Industrial estate roads are designed for lorries and shift patterns, not for 40 cars arriving between 9.30am and 10am with children crossing between parked vehicles. Pedestrian routes from the parking area to the entrance matter more here than on almost any other kind of application.

Parking demand at weekend peaks

Soft play has an unusual demand profile: high on weekend mornings and afternoons, high through school holidays and wet weather, low on weekday afternoons in term time. Parties compress it further, because a party generates a burst of arrivals and departures within a few minutes.

Model accumulation rather than a single trip rate. Take the session structure the operator intends, the capacity of each session, the expected car occupancy given that most visitors arrive as a family group, and the overlap between one session leaving and the next arriving. That overlap is where the car park fails.

Shared use is the strongest argument available on an industrial estate. Neighbouring units in warehouse or office use are typically at their quietest exactly when soft play is busiest, and a formal shared parking arrangement with the landlord or a neighbouring occupier converts a theoretical argument into a deliverable one. Say who owns the spaces and what the agreement is.

Surveying comparable venues

Published trip rate databases hold relatively few soft play sites, and the sites they do hold vary widely in size and catchment. Where the database is thin, a survey of comparable venues is more persuasive than a rate pulled from a broad leisure category.

Choose comparators on the things that drive demand: floor area, session structure, party capacity, catchment character and the availability of alternative parking. Survey on a Saturday and during a school holiday weekday, record arrivals and departures as well as accumulation, and note how many cars circulate looking for a space.

Present the survey honestly, including the times when the comparator car park was full. A Transport Statement built on observed data from two similar venues carries more weight than a modelled figure with no local evidence, and it is much harder for a highway officer to dismiss.

A parking stress survey of the surrounding streets, using a recognised methodology, answers the related question of what happens when the on-site car park fills.

Means of escape and occupancy

Occupant capacity drives escape provision, and escape provision often drives the business plan. Approved Document B assigns floor space factors by use to calculate occupancy, and soft play has no dedicated entry, so the designer has to justify the factor adopted and agree it with the building control body. Adopting an optimistic factor and discovering the real one later is an expensive way to find out.

From that number follow exit widths and the number of exits, travel distances, and whether escape in a single direction is acceptable anywhere in the layout. Assembly and recreation uses are treated more tightly than offices or storage, so a warehouse with two doors at one end may need new exits cut into the flank walls, which brings landlord consent and possibly planning permission for the external alterations.

Children change the risk picture. Many occupants cannot self evacuate, some will be unaccompanied inside a play frame, and a frame is a structure people have to climb out of before they can leave. That affects alarm strategy, staffing, and the time assumed for evacuation, and it is the reason a fire engineering approach is often needed rather than a simple application of the guidance.

Noise from a mezzanine structure

Mezzanines are standard in these fit-outs, and they carry impact noise straight into the structure. Where the neighbouring occupier is an office, a gym or, worst of all, residential above or adjacent, that transmission becomes a planning issue rather than a private one.

Deal with it in design: isolated mezzanine construction, resilient layers under the play surface, and separation between the frame and party walls. Where residential receptors are close, a Noise Impact Assessment covering both plant and activity noise should accompany the application, with the ventilation plant assessed at the times the centre will actually operate.

Ventilation is worth a sentence of its own. A full play centre generates a lot of heat and humidity, and the plant needed to deal with it is larger than most applicants expect.

Conditions on capacity and hours

Expect a condition limiting maximum occupancy, because it is the mechanism by which the authority controls parking demand. Propose the number yourself, derived from the escape calculation and the parking evidence, and make sure it matches the figure in the fire strategy. Two documents quoting different capacities is the fastest route to an officer picking the lower one.

Hours conditions follow the same logic, and a condition set at opening can be varied later through a section 73 application if the trading pattern changes, though it is easier to get right at the outset.

Also expect conditions on party coach or minibus arrangements where they are proposed, on the management of the car park, and sometimes on the provision of a travel plan.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority and building control body before relying on it.

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