Construction work is now underway on a brand new ‘plaza’ style skatepark in Ruddington – which should be ready for use by this spring.
Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC) is building a replacement concrete facility at Rushcliffe Country Park which has been designed by Canvas (top image) in close collaboration with the young people from our village and elsewhere who will use it. It’s hoped the contemporary skatepark will meet the needs of future Olympic skateboarders and BMXers from Ruddington and the surrounding areas.
As shown in Charlene Robinson’s photo below, workmen have now moved on to the site. Their first job was to remove the old wooden structure which had reached the end of its useful life and was closed last year on safety grounds.
RBC has developed this project alongside social enterprise Skate Nottingham, science education charity Ignite! Futures and Nottingham Trent University – who’ve involved young people in co-designing the new facility through a series of workshops, held both online and in small, socially-distanced groups. These were attended by local 11 to 18-year-olds, as well as older skaters and BMXers, facilitated by academic experts in architecture, engineering and sports science and mentored by university students – all supported by a grant from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
You may not realise that Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are among the original homes of UK skateboarding, boasting a 50-year history in the sport. If it goes ahead, our area may even be represented in the delayed Tokyo Olympics this summer by local professional skateboarder and Skateboard GB team-member Alex Hallford, who grew up skating the old wooden skate park here in Ruddington along with the one at Lady Bay.
Alex says: “It’s great to see local councils realising the community value of a good skatepark. The amount of use a good skatepark gets and the love they receive from people local and a far is testament how much they are appreciated.”
James Hope-Gill, Chief Executive of Skateboard GB, adds: “It is great to see that Rushcliffe Borough Council has a dedicated budget for skateboarding facilities and has really thought about the design of each of their parks individually, rather than duplicating the same forms in each. The existing parks at Lady Bay and Radcliffe have already proved that, with forward thinking and involving the user community from the outset, it has led to two amazing skate parks which are hugely popular for all wheeled users.”
The workshop participants’ film, audio recordings, drawings and models will all be exhibited interactively during the 2021 Festival of Science and Curiosity from February 10th-17th, which will be followed by the completion of our new skatepark in Ruddington in April 2021. By this time it’s hoped the current ‘social distancing’ requirements on such areas will have been relaxed.
It will then complement other, similar facilities in Rushcliffe including East Leake Skatepark, which opened in 2018, and further Council skateparks at Lady Bay and Radcliffe-on-Trent which opened in 2019.
You can find progress updates >>HERE<< and enquire further about the project via countrypark@rushcliffe.gov.uk.
