Skateboarding

THE DIMENSION PARK PROJECT

The first demands for a skateboard park in Bourne were made in 1978 but were not well received. Councillor Lorenzo Warner told a meeting of Bourne Town Council's amenities committee on Tuesday 20th June 1978: "Skateboarding is on the decline. If this council has money to spare, it should be spent on encouraging industry in the town. It is lamentable that money should be wasted. Our children should be trained first to take jobs. There is plenty of time for leisure later on. I want this council to spend its money wisely and well. We should not waste it on these silly things."

The council decided to call a public meeting to ascertain whether there was sufficient interest in skateboarding to warrant the provision of suitable facilities but no skateboard park was built as a result.

Since then, the possibility of a skateboard park for Bourne has been rumbling on and off ever since. In the meantime, youngsters could be seen occasionally practising their sport in the late evenings and at weekends wherever they could find an area of concrete or hard standing, usually at unauthorised locations such as the bus station in North Street and the car parks at the Burghley Centre and the Hereward Health Centre in Exeter Street and they were once seen on the paved area around the War Memorial in South Street.

A new initiative surfaced in February 2001 when a petition was raised in the hope of finding the necessary £190,000 with several town mayors pledging cash during their terms in office but little happened until the campaign won official recognition in 2007 when it became known as the Dimension Park project.

The police gave wholehearted support saying that a skateboard park was necessary in an attempt to stem anti-social behaviour in the town and the recreation ground in Recreation Road was suggested as a suitable site despite being in the middle of a densely populated area with houses on all sides, in Harrington Street, Recreation Road, Alexandra Terraces and Ancaster Road. Councillor Alistair Prentice (Bourne West), then a member of the skatepark committee who lived some distance away in Willoughby Road, was equally enthusiastic. “It will make a real difference by helping deal with anti-social behaviour and should go some way towards eliminating problems in the town centre”, he told the Stamford Mercury (28th September 2007). In the event, South Kesteven District Council which administers the recreation ground refused to grant a lease on health and safety grounds but despite these setbacks, the search went on.

The old water cress beds between Baldock’s Mill and Manor Lane were then suggested as a possible site for skateboarding together with associated pastimes such as in-line roller blading and BMX and although 1,000 people signed a petition supporting the idea, this was later considered to be an unsuitable location.

By October 2010, a suitable site had still not been found and the entire skateboard park project was abandoned. The committee had, however, managed to attract almost £16,000 in grants and fund raising, the bulk of which was returned or distributed to good causes in the town and only £2,500 remained in the kitty.

A fresh attempt was made in late 2011 to revive the project when The Local newspaper reported (November 18th) that there has been an offer of some land but only if there was still sufficient interest to proceed. Mrs Nelly Jacobs, clerk to the town council and one of the three remaining members of the Dimension Park committee, told the newspaper: "We need to find out if there is still an interest in having a skateboard park and helping establish one, otherwise there is no point. This could be a realistic opportunity to finally get one built."

A questionnaire was distributed in an attempt to gauge support and recruit members to the committee who would be prepared to assist with the planning application and fund raising. Then in April 2012, the proposed location of the site was eventually disclosed as land at the Abbey Lawn but the announcement did not receive universal approval, mainly because the sporting organisations already there were not consulted by Bourne United Charities which administers it.

The trustees propose to hand over a plot of land at the Abbey Lawn, 46 yards by 35 yards, located behind the main football pitch, to be developed as a concrete skateboard park at a cost of between £115,000 and £170,000. The facility will be run by the Dimension Park committee whose chairman is now schoolboy Zac Pinchin, aged 18, a sixth former at Bourne Academy.

The main objections were that the sports clubs already using the Abbey Lawn would suffer from vandalism and criminal damage, a problem that was thought to have been solved by increased security precautions in 2009 including the erection of iron railings around the grounds at a cost of £60,000 and the introduction of a dusk to dawn curfew.

Bourne Town Football Club was particularly aggrieved and their secretary, Bob Lambert, has made no bones about what they can expect if the scheme goes ahead. "There will be constant noise from skateboards going on late into the night from hordes of youths who will use the football stands as shelter, picnic area or worse", he said. "Damage will increase on a higher scale than it already is. The trustees have no idea what is going on and not one has bothered to contact the club about this. We have struggled for many years to keep the football club going without any substantial help from the local authorities. It is heart breaking to see the damage caused to our premises and, by chance, more has been done this week with guttering being ripped down. It is a fact that where more youths congregate the risk of hooliganism will increase."

Derek Bontoft, spokesman for the Abbey Lawn Sports Association which represents all sports clubs using the site, added his voice to the protest. "It may not be the skateboarders who are responsible for the vandalism", he said, "but this facility will attract other youngsters who have done the damage in the past. I cannot believe that the trustees who spent so much money on erecting a fence to reduce the problems should now allow this facility in an enclosed area. The proposal seems to have had little thought given to a suitable site and certainly no consultation with any other users of the Abbey Lawn."

The other problem is that skateboard parks do not have a good record. One that had been erected in the recreation ground at Stamford was shut in 2007 because of serious damage by vandals that rendered it no longer fit for use while a similar situation arose in the park at Prince's Street, Sutton Bridge, where the facility was closed down for repairs because of vandalism (2004). The skateboard park at Wyndham Park, Grantham, has had problems of vandalism, a lack of supervision and a shortage of funds (2006 and 2010) and there have been similar problems for the skate parks at Oundle, Northamptonshire, where all manner of rubbish and empty bottles turned the site in the recreation ground into an eyesore (2004) and at Werrington, Peterborough, where additional police patrols were ordered in an attempt to prevent late night drinking, criminal damage and the spread of graffiti and litter (2011).

The proposed site at the Abbey Lawn is surrounded on three sides by houses in Coggles Causeway, Victoria Place and Abbey Road, and home owners are incensed about the possible noise once skateboarding begins. One tenant, Ron Davison, was so angry that he is starting a petition in an attempt to prevent the project from going ahead, a protest that is now being supported by the football club. "Nothing appears to have been learned from the fiasco at Stamford which resulted in the closure of their skateboard park due to graffiti, drugs and vandalism", he said.

A final decision now rests with the town council for although BUC has agreed to provide the land, they want no further part in the running and administration and so the council will have to take on responsibility for the lease, repair and insurance once the skateboard park is built. If they do approve, the next hurdle will be planning permission from South Kesteven District Council.

REVISED AUGUST 2012