'Something quite unique': Little Daisy's in Shipley named nation's best soft play centre

Having already won the regional Yorkshire title, husband-and-wife owners Adam and Faye Carver were shocked and delighted to win the overall national accolade at a ceremony in Birmingham this month.

Adam says they are particularly pleased with the award given judges make an undercover visit to every nominee to assess who deserves to win.

"Somebody somewhere - we don’t know who - nominated us. Initially it is a regional thing and we won for Yorkshire. They basically ‘mystery shop’ everybody as well as getting people to vote.

"Winning the national award was a little bit surreal but also it is also very nice for someone else to validate what we believe we have built. We have worked over 10 years, we have managed to get through Covid without losing any staff despite being shut for 47 weeks.”

Faye, who is now 35, came up with the initial idea of establishing a soft play when she was 18. After marrying Adam when she was 21, a couple of years later they began to start turning the dream into a reality.

Faye was initially running a toddler group at the Christian Life Church where both her and Adam are pastors and the pair got financial backing to turn the room she was using into a more formal soft play centre.

"At the time, the hall was getting used for about five or six hours a week. We just started exploring what it might look like to convert it into something full-time, that created jobs and used the room a bit more,” Adam explains.

"So in October 2012 we opened and we rented the space off the church."

The pair had a clear vision that they wanted their site to be different from a typically soft play centre and would be specifically aimed at under-fives.

Adam says: “We always wanted to create a small, intimate environment.

"Ten years ago, they didn’t really exist like this. You had the big sites and places that went up to eight or ten years old because that is an easier way to make money.

"But our vision was always that the cafe would be good enough that the adults would want to come without the play and soft play would be good enough that the children would want to come without the cafe. We wanted them both to be excellent.

"Ten years ago we were quite unique and since then a number of people, even locally, have taken on the model and used it – even to having the same pricing structure. We take it as a great compliment.

"One of the things we have done to set ourselves apart is work really hard in terms of allergens. We bake a lot of our own stuff – gluten-free, vegan and we are a completely nut-free place.

"We never really wanted to just be a place where you came in, sat down, nobody talked to you and you paid your money and left. It was never really about making a lot of money, it was about building relationships with people.

“For us it was as much about creating a welcoming environment and creating a space where people feel cared for and welcome in.”

More recently, the centre has become involved in Bradford Council’s ‘warm bank’ initiative where different facilities are offering people somewhere warm to stay over winter during the energy bills crisis.

On Tuesday afternoons for two hours, the centre operates as a completely free warm space with free drinks as well as the play centre being open to children.

"There are lots of warm spaces around and you can go to a library or a church but there are not a lot of under-five friendly spaces around.”

The centre has eight members of staff and can have 34 customers at any one time, each of whom can stay for up to two hours each.

"Financially you could argue it is not clever but actually in terms of the experience we create, we think it is worth it.

"If we wanted to make a lot of money we would do it very differently. That has never been the number one thing. The number one thing has been creating an environment where parents, grandparents, carers and their under fives can come in and have a great time.

"One of the things I think that proves it is when people come in and talk about how peaceful it is even when there is 15 to 20 babies screaming! I think we’ve built something quite unique and the attention to detail Faye puts into it is incredible. When you get the little things right, people notice and it makes a difference.”

He says reopening after the long lockdown-ordered closure of soft plays has been an emotional experience.

"One of my frustrations is just after Covid you saw 18-month-olds who had no idea how to interact with another 18-month-old because they had never seen anybody and that broke our hearts.

"The impact of that we are still seeing now in that these kids are having to learn how to interact.

"We’ve tried to create a community. Lots of people come every week and there are people we know who started coming on their own and now are booking a table together with people they’ve got to know here.”

As for the future, Adam says the couple have a simple but important ambition. "We only get to see these children and parents for a few years. We’d like to be here long enough so those children come back with their own kids and say ‘My mum or grandma brought me here when I was little’.

"If we were able to do that and still provide that same sense of family, community and care then that would be special.”