‘Life-changing’: parents welcome £10m UK play centre for disabled children

Gympanzees near Bristol will be the first UK site of its type, catering for children unable to use regular playgrounds

It has been over a decade since Stephanie Wheen set out to create the UK’s first play and leisure centre specifically designed for disabled children.

Over the past 10 years, she and her team have raised millions of pounds, meticulously researched how to make the centre as inclusive as possible and spent years trialling sessions with disabled children. And soon, the doors to Gympanzees will open for the first time.

“It’s been so long in the making – I try picturing it and it’s just a lot of smiley people. I expect families are going to be quite awestruck because it’s been made for them when they’re so used to there being nothing,” said Wheen.

The idea was born in 2016 out of Wheen’s work as a children’s physiotherapist in Bristol. With her sessions constantly fully booked, she tried to get the disabled children she worked with to do more physical activity in the community so they would not need to rely so heavily on her service.

But it did not work. “Poor access, attitude, equipment that was the wrong size – children’s needs were just not being met in lots of different ways,” Wheen said. “It was completely heartbreaking because these children need exercise more than anyone.”

Research by the charity Scope has found that half of UK playgrounds are not accessible for disabled children, and children with disabilities are twice as likely to be obese than non-disabled children.

Wheen felt a purpose-built activity centre was the only way to address the gap. With a team of volunteers, she began booking Send schools during the holidays to run “pop-up” play and exercise sessions, bringing in three lorries loaded with specialist equipment.

They saw children’s physical and mental health improve instantly. Some walked, held themselves upright or rolled over independently for the first time; others laughed in a way they never had before. Some families travelled up to eight hours to attend the sessions.

“We had a thousand visitors over the first four weeks that we were open,” said Wheen. “Families thought it was amazing, but it was still a pop-up in a school – it wasn’t enough.”

Having proved the idea worked and there was high demand, they started to look for a permanent home – no easy task as a small charity. After years of hunting, they bought a 60-year-old former service station by the Severn Bridge, north-west of Bristol.

They used a loan of £2.2m to buy the 4,000 square metre (43,000 sq ft) site, and have raised over £10m to finish the project. They have £400,000 left to find.

The centre, which took three years to design, will have 10 spaces including a music room, gym, trampoline and climbing area, and dark and light sensory rooms, as well as a fully accessible outdoor play park.

“Playgrounds are notoriously not inclusive,” said Fran Garland, chief operating officer. “You see people sat in wheelchairs watching their siblings or their friends playing on everything, waiting for them to come back.