What this is
Kids Play Centre is a guide to indoor play for parents and carers in the United Kingdom. It sets out what the different formats are, which age each one actually suits, how to read a venue in the first few minutes of standing in it, what the British Standards cover and what they leave alone, and what your rights are when you buy a party, a pass or a session.
It contains 36 articles. It contains no venue names, no addresses, no ratings and no recommendations, and it never will.
Why we name no venues
This is the decision that shapes everything else, so it is worth stating plainly.
We have not inspected any play centre. We have no inspection capability, no right of entry and no way to verify what a venue does on a given day. A play centre that was excellent last year may have changed hands, changed staff or stopped doing its checks. Publishing a name and an address implies a check we have not carried out, and for a children’s venue that implication is not a small thing. A parent who chooses a place because we listed it, and finds it is not what we implied, has been let down in a way that matters.
The other half of the reason is that a list is the easy half of the job and the less useful half. You can find a list of play centres near you in about four seconds. What is much harder to find is a clear account of what a good one looks like, so that you can judge the place you are standing in. That is the half we write.
Who publishes it
Kids Play Centre is published by Northbank Media. Editorial decisions are made by the desk that writes it. No advertiser, sponsor or paying venue has any input into what is published, what is checked or what is said, and there is no arrangement under which they could.
How it makes money
Two lines of income, both published.
The venue register. A venue may pay to appear in a register of disclosed facts that it supplies and signs off: its registered company number, its public liability insurer, the date of its last documented risk assessment, its accessibility provision, and whether it runs quiet or sensory friendly sessions. Entries are alphabetical, labelled as paid, and carry no score, ranking or commentary. A register entry is not a safety endorsement, and we say so on the entry itself. The register is currently empty. The register page explains that and why.
The newsletter sponsor line. One labelled sponsor line in the fortnightly newsletter, at a rate published on the newsletter page. It is marked as advertising, it appears in a fixed position, and it has no relationship to editorial content.
There is no display advertising on this site, no affiliate links, no sponsored articles, no paid placements in any article, and no arrangement of any kind with a search or shopping platform. There are no commercial links in any article, and that is stated at the foot of every one.
What the money cannot buy
The list is short and it is absolute. Money cannot buy a mention in an article. It cannot buy a change to any safety guidance, a softening of any check, or the removal of a line from a five minute check. It cannot buy a ranking, because there is no ranking. It cannot buy a claim that a venue is safe, because we do not make that claim about anywhere. The full list of things we refuse to sell is published on the criteria and rates page, along with the rates themselves.
How the writing is done
Our sourcing and correction policy is set out in full on the editorial standards page, including our rules on statistics we cannot attribute, images, and the deliberate absence of children from every photograph on this site.
What this is not
It is not a safety inspection service. It is not legal advice, and where we describe the effect of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or the Equality Act 2010 we are describing general principles and pointing at the legislation rather than advising you on your situation. It is not medical advice; if a child is hurt, the NHS is the source, and in an emergency the answer is 999.
If you think something here is wrong, we would like to know. The contact page explains how corrections work.