AFTER being closed for over six months, a popular Redditch soft play centre is set to re-open on Thursday October 1.

Imagination Street Soft Play and Trampoline Park in Redditch's owner, Kevin Grubb, says he has been working for six weeks to make the soft play centre Covid secure.

Mr Grubb said: “This has been by far the most testing and challenging period of our 10 years of being in business but we are determined to adapt and offer an experience that is still great fun for the kids whilst giving parents peace of mind that their family is in a safe environment.”
There has been a raft of new introductions to Imagination Street to meet the stringent guidelines set by the government.

These include

- Reduced capacity in both the seating area, the trampoline park and the play frame.
- A strict cleaning regime for all areas along with an anti-bacterial fogging machine for the play frame and removing all the balls from the ball pools.

- Two soft play sessions a day during the wee: 10am-2.30pm and 3pm-6pm, with a 30 minute break for a full clean of the facilities to take place.

- At weekends the sessions will be 10am-12 noon, 12.30pm-2.30pm and 3pm-5.30pm

- A new app to enable customers to place their food orders whilst seated and receive table service.
Along with investments in all the other safety measures Mr Grubb says he is confident that Imagination Street has covered all the bases to create a safe, Covid secure environment whilst not taking away from the key function of the venue which is for kids to have fun and let off some steam.
He added: “We cannot wait to open our doors again on the 1st October, to see some old friends but most importantly seeing the joy on the children’s face again. It is a strange new world but one which we are embracing and are determined to make work.
"All we ask now for is that our local community supports our efforts by coming in to see us and respects the measures we have put in place.”

When we spoke to Mr Grubb in July he said he was less than confident his business would survive the pandemic.

“I am trying to stay pragmatic and positive about the situation, but honestly I am not confident," he said at the time. "We do not yet have an opening date from the government but, even if we did, we would have to limit the number of people we let in so dramatically we would actually lose money by opening.

“We have got to a situation now where almost all our personal savings are in the business and we are running out of money very, very rapidly.

“I am so desperately hoping we can turn it around. I don’t mind if we’re not making profit, I just want us to be able to hold our ground until this is over. I will do anything to keep our doors open.”