On Saturday afternoon, we managed to drag ourselves away from White Air Extreme Sports Festival for an hour to attend the official opening of the Sandown Skate Park.
It was a great launch with Cllr Ian Ward, Leader of the Council David Pugh and Cllr Val Stephenson all making speeches and the samba band adding to the atmosphere.
After the ribbon was cut and the youth descended onto the new ramps, we caught up with Sandown Town Councillor, Val Stephenson who spearheaded the project.
Val told us that she had been a sports teacher all of her working career, but when she returned to Sandown from living in New Zealand, was hugely disappointed at the lack of facilities for young people.
After being encouraged to become a Town Councillor by County Councillor Heather Humby, Val was handed a huge file of letters from residents regarding the lack of anywhere for the young people to skate.
What was clear from the letters, was that the skaters felt alienated by local residents and police, the only place they could skate was on the streets and they were constantly being moved on.
Six years later and a fantastic new skate park is now being heavily used by the young people. Val told us that she has had lots of businesses in the town asking her where all the kids had gone! “To the skate park!” she replies with a huge smile on her face.
But it wasn’t an easy ride. Funds were very hard to get hold of and Val originally found it difficult to adjust to this lack of support, after returning home from New Zealand where a huge amount of support is provided financially and in kind, for youth led projects.
Val finished by telling us that she is in the process, with the help of cartoonist, Alan Rowe, of designing a historical lecturn to be placed in the local area. It will feature the history fo the area which was originally home to Charles I’s Fort.
The new skate park has appropriately been named The Fort.
Listen to the interview by clicking on the play button below.
[audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/sandown-skate-park-val-stephenson.mp3]
We have interviews with Cllr Ward, Cliff Church and Keith Rogers from the Sandown Lions to follow later in the week.
