Covpark extension put on hold

Prepare yourselves for a rant….

Last night, I had a chat with Phil Hunt, who had some insight onto where we are with the skatepark extension in Memorial Park.

It would seem that the park manager, Ann, has had enough of people misbehaving and damaging council property in the Memorial Park (BMXers were apparently named as the culprits). Phil reckons this isn’t the real local BMXers or Skaters who are there everyday, riding the skatepark properly – we reckon it’s down to kids who happen to just own bikes and are giving us a bad name, because they get bored of actually trying to ride properly. Until the situation improves dramatically, the skatepark project has been put on hold until (hopefully) next year.

Needless to say, I’m pretty angry that the extension is being put on hold due to a bunch of kids who didn’t listen to any of us when we said “DON’T DAMAGE COUNCIL PROPERTY”. We’ve had to tell people this kind of stuff way too many times, and now it seems that it’s damaged our chances of getting the skatepark extension in the near future. It makes me look bad, it makes you look bad, and it makes things so much harder to push the project forward. We need to work together – if you see anyone damaging council property with a bike, skateboard, scooter or rollerblades in Memorial Park, have a massive go at them, and let’s see if we can get the ball rolling again.

I don’t need to tell you all how much of my own time and effort I’ve put into this project. You’ve all signed the petition, you’ve all used Covpark at one point or another, and you all want a better skatepark – The demand is there, but it is currently being outweighed by a bunch of tools with no intelligence. Offensive graffiti, damaging the fence at the skatepark, destroying tree saplings planted by the Friends group, and skating the newly refurbished tennis courts, and now damaging new buildings and redevelopments in the park; these things have all added towards Ann denying us our skatepark extension. The worst thing about it, is that some of the above actions were done by skateboarders – the kind of guys who read this blog (and may have even been featured on it). To be honest, I expected better, but obviously it’s too hard for some people to just do the right thing. If these people aren’t going to use common sense, then why the fuck should I bother getting their skatepark extended?

Food for thought.