A soft play centre in Cheddar is looking to come out of the coronavirus pandemic in a positive mood with major plans for the business in place.

Ocean Adventurers opened in July 2019 so has had to face five of its early months in lockdown, meaning the team behind the business has been working on ways to diversify, while still offering their soft play in a Covid-safe way.

Among the plans in place are a day nursery, laser tag evenings and date nights for adults while their children play.

This has been made possible by the venue obtaining an alcohol licence through the courts, having initially been refused by Sedgemoor District Council.

However, the Ocean Adventurers team are keen to stress that alcohol can only be served between 5pm and 8pm, with a two-drink limit accompanying food.

This licence will also enable conferences to take place at the venue, and provide another string to the business's bow to help it adapt to the Covid-19 crisis.

Founder and managing director of Ocean Adventurers, Tom Filer, told Cheddar Nub News: "It's been a bit of a bumpy road to get approval but we now have a licence to sell alcohol between the hours of 5pm and 8pm.

"This licence comes with conditions such as a two-drink limit and only serving alcohol with food, but it now gives us the opportunity to focus on specific evening sessions such as laser tag nights with a 24 laser tag gun system, date nights where we look after the children while the adults have a meal out, and adult-only work conferences and events.

"It is so important that we focus on adults' mental wellbeing during Covid as well as how much children have been disproportionately affected and being able to offer events such as date night that can help to bring back a bit of that normality is key to our strategy of becoming more of a community asset."

Tom said that the pandemic has been tough for the soft play industry as it was one of the first to lockdown and one of the last to reopen.

"When lockdown hit, we wanted to utilise the time to take stock of what had gone well and what we needed to change and improve on, as well as rethinking every stage of the business operations to make sure that we had a Covid-safe and financially viable business coming out of lockdown and into the medium-term post-Covid," he said.

"We already knew that we were going into Covid-19 with a strong reputation for cleanliness and fogging, and that in many ways we were Covid-secure before Covid hit with technology such as mobile phone ordering to your table.

"There were changes that we made relatively quickly to the business such as upgrading the role play area upstairs to make it a more immersive experience for both parents and children.

"Then there were the practical changes we had to make such as removing a lot of furniture to allow for social distancing, increasing our fogging frequencies and we also gave the centre a fresh lick of paint.

"But where we really focussed our energy was around the question of how do we come out of this pandemic stronger?

"Very few new start-ups are afforded the opportunity to take a pause from business operations in their first year and reflect in detail on how everything has gone. We couldn't waste such a rare opportunity.

"So, we decided to focus on separating off part of the building and going for Ofsted approval to open a new day nursery for children from six months to five years old and also a holiday club for children up to the age of 12.

"Gaining Ofsted approval is not an easy task, but we were incredibly grateful that our inspection visit went really well, with no improvement points whatsoever.

"We're really excited with what we can bring to the local area in terms of childcare provision to help support families.

"There is no other private provision of a day nursery in either Cheddar of Axbridge and many parents spoke to us about the need for childcare for babies in particular locally.

"We have 22 places in the nursery, so we are starting quite small and will be able to give a lot of individual attention to children.

"We've also invested in our outdoor facilities, creating two new outside areas that rival the market-leading facilities we have indoors.

"Finally, we're focussing on how we work in partnership with parents using some pretty pioneering technology to allow parents a greater insight into their child's day and learning journey."

Tom says the feedback Ocean Adventurers have had on the new pre-bookable lower capacity sessions has been incredibly positive and it's something that he will probably look to keep in place longer term.

Ocean Adventurers also recently won the Bristol Life Best New Business 2020. This award is on top of the FSB Best New Start-up (South West) 2020 award it won just before lockdown and also a number of other awards the business has been shortlisted for.

Tom said: "It wasn't the first year of business that we planned for, but we're hopeful that we have been able to adapt to the new Covid world sufficiently to allow us to continue for many years to come."