CREATORS of the UK’s first ever inflatable theme park have revealed they are launching one in Runcorn.

The Jump Nation trampoline centre on Shaw Street is set to have a radical makeover to create a giant indoor bouncy play space featuring slides, assault courses and ball pools.

Owners Michelle and Matt Ball say the town's warehouse will become the region’s flagship Cheshire Inflata Nation.

It follows the transformation of the Trafford Park Jump Nation in Manchester last month.

The Runcorn site is earmarked for an overhaul early next year, taking advantage of the region’s new Mersey Gateway transport upgrades.

Michelle said: “We wanted to use the Manchester site as a testing ground to see how popular the Inflata Nation concept would be.

“And after an overwhelmingly-positive response from customers further down the M62, we’re now looking to convert Runcorn’s Jump Nation into an Inflata Nation too.

“The Runcorn centre is actually larger in size than our Manchester location, so we should be able to really utilise the extra space.

“We’ll also be looking to replicate everything on offer in Manchester - including the climbing wall, the ‘Inflata Drop’ giant slide and the Gladiators’ style jousting arena.

“Watch this space for further details.”

If the Runcorn site proves as popular as Manchester’s Inflata Nation, which opened on October 21 this year, visitors may need to get your booking in early.

In little over a month Michelle and Matt welcomed around 30,000 customers, following a star-studded launch attended by celebs like Corrie’s Samia Longchambon and Real Housewives of Cheshire’s Leanne Brown.

Director Michelle, 35, said: “When we first launched Inflata Nation we obviously hoped it would prove popular - but we certainly didn’t plan for it.

“Thankfully since we opened we’ve been super busy and, if we’re being honest, the level of interest has been surprising even to us.

“We’ve gone from around 20 members of staff to 60 at the Trafford Park site, which required a pretty urgent recruitment drive.

“And while there’s plenty of availability for sessions, bookings for parties are now pretty-much booked up until March next year.

“We’re just glad people seem to like it.”

The Inflata Nation refurbishment cost £500,000.

Matt added: “While trampoline parks are becoming more and more common, we think Inflata Nation is a pretty unique concept - there’s certainly nothing else quite like it in the world so far.”

Jump Nation Runcorn - which currently features around 140 wall-to-wall trampolines connected together to form one huge bounce space - first opened in July 2016, following the launch of the Manchester centre in 2014.

Jump Nation sessions currently cost £6.95 for children aged under 6 and £8.95 for anyone else.

The prices for Inflata Nation Manchester are currently £5.95 for under fours and £9.95 for anyone else.