Work will begin this week on a new £250,000 family adventure and entertainment centre in Plymouth.

Businessman Dave Burgess, 33, is behind plans for the centre, which is being developed in a unit on the former Clarks shoe factory site in Whitleigh.

He plans to turn the vacant property into a family play and entertainment centre for up to 300 people at any one time.

Mr Burgess, of Woolwell, said: "Family entertainment around the Plymouth area is poor. Play has been aimed at younger children such as six to eight-year-olds.

"Older children still want to play. At the new centre if a dad wants to go down one of the slides he can. Some of the slides will be 70ft long."

He wants to fill the 12,000sq ft unit with slides, ball pools, climbing frames, soft play toys, adventure apparatus, a maze and play area. For older children there will be Sumo wrestling games, tug-o-war and challenges similar to those on the television series Gladiators.

It should be ready by mid-October.

This story was first published by the Plymouth Evening Herald