The Ridings: New owner of Wakefield shopping centre to add free indoor kids adventure play zone

The play area, designed by the team behind the award-winning Playday Limited, which created one at the York Designer Outlet and also one at Cannon Hall Farm between Wakefield and Barnsley, will be unveiled to the public later this year.

It will take over the 1,200m² space in what is currently The Zone and a retail unit, on the lower mall near Morrisons.

Zahid Iqbal, the new owner of The Ridings: said; “My grandchildren love the play areas when we go visiting different places and I wanted to give something spectacular to the families of Wakefield, for free, undercover and safe for them to meet up and for their children to play together.”

The area will allow children of all ages to play, let off steam, and interact with each other on safe, professionally designed, and installed equipment, whilst parents, grandparents and careers play can play with them or catch up in the new comfortable seated area included in the zone.

The adventure play zone will be open daily, every day that the centre is and suitable for those up to 12 years of age, with zoned areas for different age groups.

It was also recently announced that the Wakefield city centre shopping mall will be hosting weekly specialist craft fairs, commencing Saturday, April 8 following the take-over of the Ridings by Mr Iqbal.

Yorkshire businessman Mr Iqbal, who runs ZF Properties, previously transformed The Packhorse centre in Huddersfield when he bought it in 2021. He also bought the Batley Shopping Centre in 2019.