Family business launches Crowdfunder to bring new children's role-play centre to Leeds

The family business, headed by former early years teacher Frankie Owens, made the appeal for support after running into last minute rises in costs.

“This has been a dream of mine for years,” explained Frankie’s daughter Ruth.

"With all of Mum’s expertise in helping children to learn through play, she was the obvious person to approach about making it happen and making sure it was something really special.”

With dad Greg on board too, the family team started small last December by launching a pop-up role-play village within Keighley Civic Centre.

The fledgling business, then called “Role-play Roundabout,” quickly found an enthusiastic following among local families.

Frankie explained: “The trouble was we were only able to run a few sessions each week, as we had to fit around other bookings of the space.

"Plus we had to spend over two hours every day just setting up and packing away our stuff! In the end it just didn’t make for a viable business.”

And so the hunt began for a permanent home. When finding suitable premises in Keighley proved difficult, the search expanded across West Yorkshire. Finally the team managed to find the perfect place - a former estate agents office on Leeds’ bustling Call Lane.

Frankie added: “When we saw this lovely space right in Leeds centre, so close to the bus and train stations, we thought: we have a great opportunity here to create something that’s really accessible not just to Leeds families, but to families right across Yorkshire.”

After a busy four months of planning the space, lining up contractors, and even making bespoke resources to bring areas like their vets, police station and construction site to life, the Hidden Village team have now launched a Crowdfunder appeal to help meet last-minute costs.

“We want to offer families an exceptional experience all round,’ added Frankie.

"This Crowdfunder will help us make sure the quality is there from day one in everything from the overall look of our play village, to the resources in each area, to the food and drink in the café.”

With The Hidden Village attracting over a thousand followers in its first few days on Facebook, and some great rewards on offer to supporters, the team are optimistic they’ll reach their crowdfunding goal in time to unveil the new attraction on schedule in late July.