In August we celebrated our 15th birthday.
So much has happened over the past years, with many milestones being achieved, but to take you back to the beginning, Play Fitness was established in 2008, with a passion of bringing outdoor exercise/play equipment to young children and a mission to help with the shocking levels of inactivity and obesity in the UK.
The Beijing Olympics 2008 inspired our CEO Paul, when he saw Beijing had outdoor gyms in their public spaces and how popular they were with their citizens.
After two years of developing and planning we installed our first outdoor gym in a Primary School in South Shields. It was such an achievement and a honour to install it in our home town. Since then we have installed exercise/play equipment in over 500 areas across the country. With some even making their was over to France. Our first products were the Outdoor Gym range, installing them in primary schools. Over the years we have extended our product range to provide inclusive, multi generational equipment suitable for all ages and abilities. We have extended our equipment to nursery's, high schools, recreational areas, community centres and sea fronts.
See here for the video of our install on South Shields sea front.
Primary schools are still one of our main customers. Having 15 years experience with working with Primary Schools has helped us gain knowledge and feedback from the schools and pupils. This has given us the chance to develop additional equipment with children and their needs in mind.
In 2014 we ran a competition in schools where we asked pupils to design their ideal outdoor exercise equipment. This lead to the inspiration of our Ninja Fitness range. From here our portfolio has extended to include, Functional Fitness, Pond Pack, Exergaming, Climbing and more recently playground equipment, including our Play Units.
So much has been made over the past years, in 2018 we purchased a larger building and offices. Having a bigger building gave us the chance to develop growth.
We extended our installation team, who all have the skills to install a multitude of equipment, MUGA’s, playground surfacing, and act as lead contractor working alongside other trades such as Tarmac installers or plant operators for larger installations.
We hired an amazing product designer who works tirelessly improving and producing wonder designs which we have the capability to prototype and produce rapidly if required.
Covid was obviously a testing time as a business. Firstly we wanted to make sure all our staff were looked after and stayed safe at home. This gave Paul our CEO some thinking time of where the company could go and re-evaluate our supply chain.
From this we can now offer a turnkey solution where each product is designed and manufactured in house here in the U.K. To improve lead time for our products, a fabrication unit was developed and the assembly section revamped. We are really proud of this and it ensures our customers have the highest quality products.
We still import quality components and materials from Europe and have a fantastic relationship with our UK and local supply chains.
The past 15 years have been an amazing journey. We would like to thank all our customers, without you we wouldn't be where we are today. All your support and recommendations have given us the chance to grow to where we are.
Keep an eye out on what's to come in the future, as we are regularly updating our product range, improving on old designs and creating unique innovative new products for launch.
Over the next years we hope to grow even more, by improving schools and community spaces with fun and engaging play and fitness equipment.
We are looking forward to what the future brings for Play Fitness!
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