Background:
Hippo Leisure collaborated with Alliance Leisure to create a new interactive water play area at Leisure at Cheltenham. Hippo worked with Cresta Leisure who built the new children’s splash pool and Hippo Leisure furnished the pool with water play equipment. This project was just one part of a £2.5million redevelopment programme at the Centre.
The new water play area brings a fresh kid appeal to the wet leisure facilities at the centre and encourages regular visits from an increased number of children of all ages and abilities as well as their families.
Play Features
A unique combination of bright and vibrant high and lowlevel water play features capture the imaginations of young minds while providing learning through play scenarios to encourage water confidence as they explore and discover their aquatic environment.
The 70 square metre splash pool provides fun for up to 32 people at any one time and includes over 50 active water points.
The centre piece is a colourful water factory themed interactive waterball. It houses a manifold and control system which is accessed via a removable panel on the side of the waterball to allow set up and maintenance. The waterball features a variety of low-level features which will create excitement for toddlers. These jets include fill ‘n’ spill buckets which are filled via water jets before children can tip the water back into the pool, interactive hand wheels which can be turned by children to manipulate the flow of
the water to the waterball jets, and finally cannon jets which create a gentle flow of water into the pool.
The waterball is topped with an interactive mast which houses 4 themed arms which provides high-level surprise and anticipatory play for older and more water confident children. The arms feature a tipping bucket, shark shower, water wheel and a pipefalls arm.
The pool features a wide range of children’s splash toys including a spray hoop and water web. A water cascades feature made up of a short mast and four interactive water channels of varying heights brings excitement to young children as they use the paddles to control the flow of the water passing through them.
An under the sea toddler themed slide with a tactile surface, moving fish elements and mirrors brings a fresh and fun element of play to a traditional toddler slide. The wall around the splash pool is made up of a selection of underwater themed interactive play panels which include moving parts and mirrors. This helps children to develop their tactile, visual and auditory stimulation. The pool’s central column is also surrounded in interactive play panels for extra interactivity.
Installation
Hippo Leisure worked hard to ensure that the play features were installed in time for the summer holidays.
Project feedback
Julie Finch, chief executive at The CheltenhamTrust told Gloucester Live:
“We’re very excited to see the project come to life after a significant amount of planning and hope that it brings a lot of fun and enjoyment. As a not for profit organisation, we can continue to reinvest money back into our sites across Cheltenham, continually improving the customer experience and offering the best in health and fitness space and equipment. The trust is particularly keen to ensure any customers with special needs are properly catered for, which has shaped some of the new features”.
