New Skate Park

FiannaGym.com

Hi everyone.

Those of you familiar with Balalley Park in the Sandyford/Dundrum area will be aware that there is an unused, eyesore, diviant-behaviour making, former tennis court. Actually it 2 tennis courts, now with no fence around it, covered in broken glass and basically sends a message to all those who enter the park that it is a place for wreckless abondonment. Hence, its a heaven for knacker drinking, littering and intimidating behaviour.

Therefore, I wish to propose that it is turned into a skatepark.

Can you guys, who know, post advice, names of contacts in councils, success stories etc. Or email them to me with your real name - so I can use them as testimonials?

Any and all info would be much appreciated.

Peace

lifesgood

i never heard of that wait are you talking about the temporary skatepark on gravatation day

FiannaGym.com

I sent this email, I'll let you guys know if I get a response.

******
Dear X

My Name is Pearse Stokes and I am a long-time resident of Dundrum. I am sure you are inundated with this sort of thing and perhaps you are not the correct person for this to be sent to. In any event here is my question;

The park in Balalley, Dundrum, is quite a nice park and always has had lots of use. When I was growing up there were tennis courts there that have since fallen into a dilapidated state. They have no fence around them, no nets and the lines are gone. Now they are covered in broken glass etc. This all adds up to a feeling that the park is in general, one of disregard and as such the "knacker drinking" and "anti-social behaviour" in the park is on the increase. It seems that sometimes the park in the evening is only for people of a rowdy nature.

I work as an anthropologist and pay particular attention to obesity and anti-social behaviour in adolescents and through this I discovered the Bushy Park skate park. Having researched this it is built on the same platform (2 tennis courts) as I propose in Balalley. So it is very possible and highly effective.

Dundrum and Sandyford are in the process of a boom. From Dundrum Town Centre all the way up to the Dublin Mountains there has been a surge of Housing, affordable housing and apartment developments. All of which need greater recreational facilities than are currently provided. A park near-by (Ballaly Park) recently lost its playground facilities. With this boom in population we need to see a development of recreational areas. Once again through my research I have found that skate parks provide a fantastic method for councils to support the young population.

All of my research, and all of the international research points to the following;
Skate parks result in decreased "anti-social behaviour"
Have a positive effect on health (long term)
Integrate a disenfranchised youth "back into" society at large

So it is clear to see that skate parks are a positive (indeed I would claim purely positive) investment. I coach martial arts and would love to see money invested there, but the truth is the skate park requires no supervision (my research supports this, indeed my research has shown decreased level of hostility and increased levels of activity in parks that are "unmanaged") and are solid concrete, in short, easy to run.

Which brings me to my next point; what the park should look like.
There are a variety of park "types" as I am no doubt you are aware. Cutting costs by choosing lower quality ramps does two things;
Firstly it annoys skaters that they have been given poor quality equipment and therefore alienates them further.
Second the equipment becomes dilapidated quickly and to use the criminologists' term, we have a "broken windows effect", that is to say dilapidated equipment sends a message that the council/government etc, just don't care and that it is okay to abuse the area. In fact this is exactly what is happening right now in Balalley with the disused tennis courts.

So the park should be an "insitue" concrete park. There are some key elements and components that I have researched to make parks useful and safe over a long term. A simple example is placement of "boundary" equipment. In many parks around Ireland this has not been given the attention it needs. Leading to "liminal" areas in the park where people congregate. This is a foolish and dangerous as people congregating on a rugby pitch. It is up to the designers to address this in the lay-out of the park. Accurate planning of the park can make is self managed.

I am sure you can see the benefits of a skate park to this rapidly expanding population and to cleaning up and developing an unused and dangerous area. I hope you will consider this.
Many thanks.

Pearse Stokes
My Address

red_ice

FiannaGym.com wrote:

Pearse Stokes

Ocker says hi

FiannaGym.com

Yo!

FOGOFUNK

Any reply yet?

shagman

Nice one , nicely worded and put together letter. It may be a bit hopefull to get another concrete park so near to bushy. If it allready has a flat hard base (tennis courts) a large mini ramp would work well .I'm thinking a custom made 36ft-48ft wide ramp bowled out ends, escalators etc.Of course boxed in steel frame is the only way to make it vandalproof.

fionn001

we need an ards in dublin, a few ledges good ground a flatbar under shelter, much better that any of these crappy modular pieces of ****e. like a tin roof with open sides or somethin . not too hard.

shortys94

Yea a bit of cement, four poles and some corrogation. Now thats a skatepark.

FiannaGym.com

Okay, here it goes....
Here is an email you can cut and paste or alternatively, write your own. The addresses are below... Cut and paste them too.

EMAIL.
Hello,

I would just like to express my support for a skate park in Balalley Park, Dundrum, to replace the disused and dilapidated tennis courts that scar this parks beauty.

I understand that the population along the Sandyford Road, (from Dundrum up to Stepaside) has exploded. Apartments, flats, affordable housing and new homes have almost doubled the population. With this, and the lack of sports facilities, I see only trouble ahead for this area, as the young population grows.

Furthermore, this beautiful park, is being let slide into disuse as the tennis courts provide a haven for "knacker drinking", making the park dangerous and an intimidating place.

I wish to express my complete support for this initiative.

Yours Sincerely


XXXXX

ADDRESSES

sports@dlrcoco.ie, smcnulty@dlrcoco.ie, bdempsey@dlrcoco.ie, alindsay@dlrcoco.ie, poconnor@dlrcoco.ie, jbailey@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, mbaker@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, nbhreathna@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, lbutler@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, nchilders@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, bconway@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, mcorrigan@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, corrm@indigo.ie, louisecosg@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, louise.cosgrave@indigo.ie, aculhane@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, cdevlin@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, cormacdevlin@ireland.com, jdbyrne@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, tonyfox@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, phand@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, ghorkan@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, kireland@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, tjoyce@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, tkivlehan@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, dmarren@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, tmatthews@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, lmccarthy@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, mmoconnor@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, denisoc@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, gokeeffe@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, joleary@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, eregan@cllr.dlrcoco.ie, carriesmyth@cllr.dlrcoco.ie

FOGOFUNK

Niceee

FiannaGym.com

Any body send any emails?

Brice De Nice

yes i did and i got a reply saying theres a masterplan being drawn up for that area and a kids playground is planned for the tennis courts. he mentioned he'd pass on my skatepark recommendation to whoever. he also said to check out the master plan for marley park available in marley house or dundrum offices as its possibly a better option. dunno whats included in the master plan already.

i sent the mail to some finegael guy and some other woman. twas the guy who replied.

FiannaGym.com

Nice one Brice,

I got a load of replies, including the one your talking about.

If we keep the pressure on, only good will come of it!!!

Peace