Car parking space outside a kids gym in south Reading could become a children’s outdoors play area as part of plans for a new nursery.
Gymfinity Kids Ltd has submitted proposals to to Reading Borough Council (RBC) to create the play area, a bin store and a plant compound next to its building on Gillette Way, Whitley.This play area will be for a new nursery at the site.
‘Nurseries by Gymfinity Kids’ operate at a number of the company's existing sites, providing day care for children aged two to five years.
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They follow an Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum and include daily access to the gym floor areas and Gymfinity Kids qualified gymnastics coaches.
Gymnfinity has 49 car parking spaces at the the site but seven car parking spaces would be lost under the plans.
However, previous plans to extend the building, which were approved but never went ahead, would have seen 36 spaces removed and were “considered to be acceptable on the basis of alternative parking facilities at the site which had ample capacity”.
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Gymfinity Kids co-occupies the west part of the building, with the other part home to BJ’s Bingo Club.
The car park entrance
The unit now occupied by Gymfinity Kids was previously occupied by ATOM as a trampoline centre.
Planning permission was granted in 2016 for an 814sqm extension to the trampoline centre which would have led to the removal of 36 car parking spaces but the development was not implemented and the planning permission has now expired.
The nursery and play area
The play area will be surfaced in astro turf with existing landscaping retained to the southern and western boundaries.
For safety and security, the play area will be enclosed by 1.8 metre close boarded fencing to its northern and eastern edges with the existing palisade fencing retained to its other boundaries.
The play space will be used solely by Gymfinity to provide an area for outdoor activities when weather permits for the new nursery.
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