Lucan Skateboard Park "before the end of summer"

the_syco

Hi,
Sorry if this has been posted before, but anyhoo's. The following is from the Liffey Champion (14/5/05: its for this Saturday, not a type-o), as there's no online page for it.

Liffey Champion, by Maeve McGovern wrote:

There was jubilation in Lucan this week at the news that the five and a half year campaign to secure a skate park for the town was finally over.

Plans for the park went through the final stage at Monday's (9th) South Dublin Couty Council meeting where the Manager's report, recommending the facility, was adopted by councillors.

The long hankered after park will be located at Griffeen Valley Regional Park and is expected to be complete before
the end of the summer at a cost of at least €150,000.

Plans for the park, which have now gone out to tender will see Lucan securing the first local authority skate park in the Greater Dublin Area.

"I am absolutely delighted that the park has got the go ahead," said CIIr Derek Keating (Ind), who has spearheaded the campaign since the idea was first suggested.

"We have finally achieved our objective at Monday's meeting of delivering the skate park for the skateboarders of Lucan. Their interests have been represented and at last we have been successful and the campaign is over."

The campaign has involved the input of hundreds of skate boarders in Lucan and resulted in the formation of the local Skate Board Club.

The level of interest in the sport was noted in the Manager's report, who was aware of the campaign that has been ongoing and the increased awareness of the need for such a facility, said CIIr Keating.

"We have an established support base in the area of skate board users and their parents. The site will be located bedside the Lucan Sports and Leisure Centre, the tennis courts, which are well utili sed in the summer, and the football pitches. This will provide a range of sports in an integrated environment and we will try to build this up.

"A very important aspect of the park as far as I'm concerned as well as for the skate boarders is what design will be adopted. The typical design will be a modular design which will allow for individual manoeuvres and ramps that are located close to each other with varying angles and distances. This is typical of skate parks that have been built in Ireland over the years.

"Another type is the 'in situ' wqich is a concrete mould covering the whole area of the skate park and provides a number of benefits in allowing for a complete flow for skaters and this is what they want.

"Five and a half years ago 1 knew nothing about skateboarding and as 1 realised how important it is to a lot of people it was something 1 got interested in."

CIIr Keating extolled the benefits for users in that it will not only provide an amenity but there will also be considerable health benefits.

"Obesity in young people is a problem and one of the rea sons for this is that we don't have adequate facilities for activities."

Lucan has an estimated 300 skate boarders and it is expected that once the park has been built it will also attract users from outside the area.

This will be cool. I may even take it up. I'll have to buy all the safety gear, tho. Better to look like a prat, than to look cool, and spill my blood all over the place:D

Any and all type-o's (except the date of when the newspaper was published), I blame on either the person who wrote the story, or on OCR (I can write, but scanning is so much easier ).

asto

On a meeting on Monday the 10th south Dublin Couty Council officially agreed to build Dublins 1st local authority skate Park in Lucan on a Pilot Basis, After ongoing meetings with residents of Ash Park housing estate who where afraid that there would be too much anti-Social Behaviour.

asto

Smois wher are you from And what age Are you

smois

well der ya go an outdoor council skatepark built in time for winter...ah well at least were gettin it

L1011

Living almost in the SDCC area, and based on what the Champion reports, theres a good chance it'll actually be ready by whenever they claim - SDCC can actually do stuff, compared to the uselessness that is Kildare CC.

KCC planned a skatepark in their 1991 redevelopment plan of Maynooth. The only progress they made towards the new playground/skatepark/changing rooms for playing field was taking away the playground that was already there. 14 years ago...

smois

ha...thats bad

smois

but in 1991 wud there had bin da support to keep da skatepark in buisness/open

L1011

smois wrote:

but in 1991 wud there had bin da support to keep da skatepark in buisness/open

Well the early 1990's was the time of the first surge in the popularity of skateboarding. However, North Kildare had a much lower population... so, I dunno. But it'd have almost certiainly been closed in the intervenening years when skateboarding wasn't as popular for a while

smois

i c...now seems to be da time for skateparks to be built and if dey ar built now more people will get involved which means der will be more reason to build even more parks..its all one big circle

shagman

MYOB if you live in Maynooth send me a PM I live up the road in Kilcock and we have a 16ft wide mini-ramp here , we plan on bowling one end and hipping the other this summer, oh and I found a fullpipe near Enfield too.
I heard that more was hapening with plans for a maynooth park recently.Once DCC and SDCC councils build lucan and bushy then every other council will be trying to jump on the bandwagon. As regards insurance lucan and bushy both had no problems at all, the "problems with insurance" speil that various councils came out with was just BS. I now seriously doubt the figures that I mentioned at the start of this thread that are quoted from fingal CoCos' feasability study.

L1011

shagman wrote:

MYOB if you live in Maynooth send me a PM I live up the road in Kilcock and we have a 16ft wide mini-ramp here , we plan on bowling one end and hipping the other this summer, oh and I found a fullpipe near Enfield too.
I heard that more was hapening with plans for a maynooth park recently.Once DCC and SDCC councils build lucan and bushy then every other council will be trying to jump on the bandwagon. As regards insurance lucan and bushy both had no problems at all, the "problems with insurance" speil that various councils came out with was just BS. I now seriously doubt the figures that I mentioned at the start of this thread that are quoted from fingal CoCos' feasability study.

Yeah, I live in Maynooth. I'm seriously out of practice at the moment though (plus one of the trucks on my board is damaged at the moment - have to sort that out) so I'd probably make a fool of myself on a ramp...

As goes insurance - if you can insure a playground thats used by <5 year olds, you can insure a skatepark thats usually used by a smaller number of older people...

expn

Alright lads ,
i live in maynooth aswell ,and love skateboarding ! Especially on ramps ......! We've got a 4.5ft high x 8ft wide mini ramp in our garden ,but it's old now ,and needs some work !
I wouldn't mind trying that 16ft wide ramp for some grinds if the coping's good..........?
Get in touch ,even just to talk about skating !

Ray_Bright@expn.com