A RECENTLY closed children’s play area at Tower Park in Poole is set to reopen on Wednesday.

Families were distressed when Monkey Bizness, above the Empire cinema, shut last month when its parent company went into administration.

Now the operators of nearby water park Splashdown have stepped in to reopen the soft play centre in time for the summer holidays.

It will be called “Lemur Landings” and employ some former staff members.

Alan Richmond, Splashdown’s managing director, said: “We’re confident we can give Tower Park a soft play centre to be really proud of.

“It’s a massive play space with huge potential and it’s our aim to make sure it fulfils it. It’s going to be a steep learning curve for us, and we might not get everything right to start with, but we hope people will bear with us while we get it all straight and give us feedback so that we can make sure that we become the best soft play centre in the area.”

Anne Jolliffe, Tower Park centre manager, said: “We didn’t want to have a major draw to Tower Park closed for any length of time, especially at this time of year.

“We know the team at Splashdown really well and know that they will do a fantastic job of operating the site.

“People have really missed Monkey–Bizness, we’ve had so many enquiries.”