When one of the UK’s leading leisure operators needed to bring a dedicated play offer to their Liskeard facility, they turned to The Play Company. The result is a vibrant, nature-inspired indoor play environment that sits at the heart of the leisure centre — drawing in families, extending visit times, and creating a compelling reason for members and day visitors alike to keep coming back.
This installation stands as a prime example of how commercial indoor play equipment, when designed and integrated thoughtfully, can transform a leisure centre from a single-use destination into a full family day out.
GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited) is one of the UK’s largest and most respected charitable social enterprises, operating more than 400 leisure, cultural, and library facilities nationwide under the well-known Better brand. With a mission rooted in improving the health and well-being of the communities they serve, GLL facilities are built around inclusivity, accessibility, and delivering genuine value for families.
Their Liskeard leisure centre serves the local community across Cornwall and beyond, offering a broad range of health and fitness activities from swimming and gym facilities through to classes and community sport, so adding a dedicated play area to the site was a natural next step in strengthening their family-friendly proposition and ensuring they had something for every member of the household.
GLL came to The Play Company with a clear ambition: to introduce a high-quality, commercially robust indoor play area that would sit alongside the leisure centre’s existing activities without disrupting them — and actively enhance the overall visitor experience.
The challenge was threefold.
First, the play area needed to feel purposeful and premium, in keeping with the quality standard GLL’s Better brand demands, rather than an afterthought bolted onto a busy leisure facility.
Second, it needed to cater to a genuinely wide family demographic, serving both energetic juniors who wanted to climb, explore, and challenge themselves, and the very youngest visitors who needed a calm, safe, age-appropriate space of their own.
Third, the theme needed to be consistent with GLL’s existing play areas whilst also being engaging. Something that would give the play area its own identity, however still recognisable to the brand, and create an immersive experience that children and parents would talk about and want to return to.
With limited floor space needing to work hard across multiple age groups, and a leisure centre environment that already carried significant footfall through its other facilities, the design and integration of the play equipment had to be precisely considered from the outset.
The Play Company designed and installed a two-zone indoor play solution that delivers a cohesive, immersive experience for families of all ages — built around a rich nature theme running from the structural frame through to every piece of panelling, theming, and detail throughout.
The Junior Frame — Nature, Bugs & Animals Throughout
At the centrepiece of the installation is a multi-level junior soft play frame, designed for children who are ready to climb, explore, and push their physical limits. The entire frame is brought to life through a detailed nature, bugs, and animals theme — a world of oversized insects, woodland creatures, and botanical detail woven into the structure at every level.
From climbing beetles and butterfly panels through to leafy canopy features and animal-themed interactive elements, the theming isn’t superficial decoration — it’s embedded into the architecture of the frame itself. Children don’t just play in the equipment; they step into a world. Every turn, every tunnel, and every platform continues the story, keeping children engaged and imaginative throughout their visit.
The frame is designed to challenge and develop children physically, incorporating a range of activities including climbing structures, tunnels, slides, and interactive play panels — all engineered to meet the highest commercial safety standards and built to withstand the demands of a busy, high-footfall leisure environment.
The Toddler and Baby Zone
Positioned alongside the main frame is a dedicated toddler and baby zone — a carefully considered space for the youngest visitors and their parents or carers. Carrying the same nature theme in a softer, more sensory-led form, this zone provides age-appropriate equipment scaled to smaller bodies, with lower-level features, soft-touch surfaces, and elements that encourage early physical development and sensory exploration.
Crucially, the toddler zone allows parents of multiple children to supervise both a junior and a baby simultaneously, removing the anxiety of managing different age groups in a shared space. The layout ensures sightlines are maintained throughout, giving carers confidence and allowing the whole family to enjoy the facility together.
Seamless Integration with the Leisure Centre
Central to the brief was ensuring the play area enhanced rather than disrupted the wider leisure centre operation. The Play Company worked closely with the GLL team to position the installation in a way that complemented existing foot traffic patterns, supported the centre’s overall commercial goals, and created a natural draw for families arriving for other activities, as well as those visiting specifically for play.
The result is a play zone that acts as a genuine revenue-generating asset for the site, with the capacity to be offered on a pay-and-play basis, included in membership packages, or used to anchor family event programming throughout the year.
The completed installation at GLL’s Liskeard leisure centre delivers everything the brief asked for and more. Families now have a compelling, high-quality indoor play space that sits naturally within the broader leisure centre offer, encouraging longer dwell times, higher secondary spend through the soft play visit/café and repeat visits.
The nature, bugs, and animals theme gives the play area a clear, memorable identity that resonates with children and parents alike, whilst also being inviting to the young, curious mind and setting it apart from generic play provision, reinforcing GLL’s commitment to delivering facilities worth visiting. The two-zone layout ensures the space works for the full family demographic, from babies taking their first developmental steps through to confident juniors ready for exploratory and physical challenges.
For GLL Liskeard, the play area is now an integral part of what makes the centre a destination for local families and not just a place to swim or train, but a place to spend time together as a family.
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