A FORMER childminder is using the skills learned during her career to establish her own business in County Durham.

Donna Etherington is opening children’s soft play area and activity centre Bamboozles Adventure World, in Bishop Auckland.

Bamboozles, on the town’s South Church Enterprise Park, has an indoor soft play area with three separate sections, for babies, toddlers and four to 13-year-olds. There is also a climbing wall, gokart track and four themed party rooms.

Ms Etherington, 28, who has a degree in childhood studies and was a childminder for nearly four years, said the project is a lifelong dream and has taken three years to plan.

She said: “I have always wanted to own a soft play area. I got the idea while I was visiting family in Norfolk eight years ago.

We visited a children’s play area and I thought, ‘I’d love to have something like this’, but I didn’t have the guts.

“The overall project from start to finish took three years. It took me two years to find a suitable building and then 15 months to fit it out.”

Ms Etherington has been helped to set up Bamboozles with support and funding from Be Enterprising, County Durham’s Local Enterprise Growth Initiative.