Getting yourself a park !!

Cork Skate

Lads, there has been alot of effort lately to try and get things moving on the parks and insurance issue, Up in Enniskileen, down in Limerick with the Lord Major, and in Cork with Prime:Time going at it hammer and thongs (obviously alot more going on aorund the country aswell).

I just wanna ask everyone to not just read, but give a suggestion (or blast out your whole opinion on it) on what can, should, will, wont and might do dont to resolve the outstanding issues or obstacles that lie in the way of skaters (or pretty much any extreme sport enthusiast in this country)

Lads .... just take time out to click the "post reply" button and let us know what you think !!

Meanwhile have a look at what some Americans have been doing.

http://www.skatepark.org/

Lads, dont be shy .... lets see what you all think !!

SeanPuddin

Yeh, I think in Liemrick we should get a group of people who have been to a park, a get some ideas forward. Propose some land for the council to build on and try and get some funding. Sitting back and waiting for the council to build, for about 2 years now is useless.

Cork Skate

I hear ya Séan, We definitely need to be pro-active on this on or the council will just sit back on it, Maybe if we could give a couple of examples of other towns that have council parks and make them aware of them.

Waterford park (even though some people say it is a bad design, it is better than nothing.)

Maybe compare to some English towns of the same size.

What actually needs to be done is people need to sit down and talk this over and get something on paper so we can approch the council with something. Also a better of research on the councils budget for public amenities wouldn't go astray .... just to find out how much could be spent.

Anyone got any ideas on how to tackle this one. ??

Chimaera

The biggest problem I can see with a skatepark is the issue of muppets vandalising it - there's always some idiot in this country with nothing better to do than make sh*t of some public amenity cos he's bored/drunk/high/etc.

On this basis, it would need to be an indoor facility. This would also be a good idea given the weather we usually get here - I'm a mountain biker myself, but I can see the difficuties with trying to pull off any kind of difficult skating moves on wet ramps, etc.

But certainly, go for it - a few friends of mine are into mtb trials/stunts and would kill to get more time in a skatepark type environment, especially when the weather is crap.

One of them has been to some of the skate demos in limerick as well - blue Trek 6000 with huuuuge big red handelbars, tiny frame. He's pretty handy at trials as well.

As for somewhere to do this in Limerick, I'd suggest an old warehouse type place - anyone know what's the story with the place in Jetlands where they used to have indoor karting? If that was available, I reckon it might be handy, though if memory serves me correctly, the roof was a bit low in there.

Another possibility is to design a set of ramps, rails, etc that can be easily dismantled when they're not being used and rent out a sports hall or exhibition hall. The new racecourse has a huge big exhibition hall, and I don't think it gets a huge amount of use. The only problem there would be the trip out from town to get to it. The old sports building in UL has a fine hall in it as well, but trying to get the use of it would be quite difficult - the sports department don't want to let anyone in there at all :mad:

After that, you'd be looking at a purpose built skatepark/arena, which sends the cost up very quickly. The problem then would be the necessity to charge for its use, and knowing the way the council works, it'd be skyhigh.

Just my €0.02

SeanPuddin

I think we should approach some private companies with loads of money. We could try The Bike Shop, Dave's new shop, Emerald Alpine, River Deep, even with them on our side, the council will begin to listen. Maybe we could ditch the council all together, and get some funding.

The previous guy was right though, vandalism is going to be a fu*cker, an open all day park would be ruined in weeks, the knackers would probably take over. The council proposed to build in the People Park, with a security guard, but I'd say if a knacker pull his knife on him, he'd sh*t himself.

In Kilkenny they have the best sk8park I've ever been to. Its in the middle of nowhere, and everyone respects the facilities. Almost every English village has a park. And in main cities the scumbags just don't bother anyone.

So I propose we gather all the scumbags, junkies, and knackers and send them off to Afghanistan or somewhere. Because if we do get an out door park, WE WILL see all our hard work, being driven on with mopeds, cars, burnt down, turned into a halting site.

So we definately need a private company in this. We need a secure location with adult supervision. So if anyones reading this who know someone, give them a ring and we'll get something started.

If you're interested go to www.PuDdiN.tK for the latest news and stuff.