Zoe Thompson from Wight Trash/John Cattle’s Skate Club C.I.C and Trustee of the Ventnor Skatepark Group reports. Ed
It has felt like a long time since we have been able to give an update on the Ventnor Skatepark Project but at last we are able to give you some news.
First a bit of a recap… let’s take you back to 2019.
Background
The park site had new concrete laid and a design and park build company had been selected through community feedback and tender processes.
Behind the scenes the committee were working hard on finalising elements of the design and getting everything ready for applying for planning permission. Then early 2020, Covid hits. This brought everything to a frustrating standstill.
Seawall collapsed
Our small dedicated team of committee volunteers however remained keen to get the project back up and running, and saw everything picked back up in 2022. Plans, reports and various documentation was all being brought together to submit a planning application, when in November just a few meters along from the skatepark the sea wall collapsed.
Understandably these major works were a major worry for Isle of Wight council and we had no real idea how this might impact the skate park site, but very quickly the Environment Agency informed us that we were at a standstill once again. Isle of Wight council ensured that the park site remained ‘open’ throughout all the revetment works, but in terms of anything else we could not move forward.
Ongoing discussions
This resulted in ongoing discussions with IWC and The Environment Agency over the last 18 months.
At times things looked pretty bleak with the possibility of the site being lost long term – not helped by adding in various cliff falls and landslides in and around the Ventnor area, which when you have a skatepark situated at the bottom of a cliff adds an extra layer of issues.
We began exploring some other possible site options, but have not been able to come up with anywhere suitable.
Decisions
The Ventnor Skatepark Group are committed to promoting skateable/wheeled sports spaces for the town, but without knowing the future of the current site we really weren’t sure what to do next.
As some people may be aware, last year, Wight Trash assisted Ryde Town Council in creating some new skatepark obstacles to help breathe life back into their park whilst bigger plans were worked on. The success of this project we felt could be emulated in Ventnor as a ‘meanwhile project’ whilst we worked out a longer term plan.
Skatepark DIY SOS
We are bringing back our elite team of park builders (pictured at top) who led the Ryde project and we are going to create some new, fun, concrete obstacles for the Ventnor space.
The Ryde skatepark project has shown what just a few new pieces can do to regenerate a park and we feel that this will allow users to have some fun down there as we hit the summer months.
We need you
We have the mainland team over for eight days, between 1st-8th June, so the more hands the better to get as much done in that time.
Want to get involved?
We would love to hear from you.No experience necessary but if you do have any kind of building, concrete or carpentry knowledge then even better.
Email [email protected], or message the Ventnor Skatepark Facebook page if you would like to help out.
Funding
This project will be funded from the donations people have given to the charity.
Due to the various uncertainties we have not done any active fundraising since 2019, so money is tight but we will do the best with what we have.
If however, you would like to make a financial contribution for this particular project then it would be more than welcome. We anticipate working towards a total budget of around £8,000.
The future
Since making the decision to carry out this meanwhile ‘DIY’ project, we have had further contact from Isle of Wight Council and The Environment Agency. With the revetment works now concluded the conversations are sounding much more positive, so we very much hope that we can return to the longer term plan of creating a full concrete skatepark for Ventnor. We will have more information on that in the next couple of months.
For now we hope people will support the DIY efforts, and enjoy the space once again for the summer.
We would like to thank everyone for their continued enthusiasm and support despite a very challenging few years…here we hope is the beginning of a new phase.
Follow the progress
You can follow the progress of the project via:
