November 2009: There was an article on the Stamford Skatepark in Stamford Living this month. You can read it at:

 http://www.bestlocalliving.co.uk/200911268441/Stamford-Living/Food-Drink/skate-eat-sleep-repeat.html

I'll let you make your own mind up on how it makes you feel about a new skatepark on the Rec but I would ask you to consider a few points that the journalist, Mr Barry, seems to have missed out:

"Everybody in Stamford is in favour of the town having a skatepark – providing it’s not too close to their house." This is not true: there are plenty of residents that border the Rec that are in favour of having a new skatepark there. We have their letters of support to prove it. In fact there are only a couple of residents against the project. A very, VERY small minority.

Of the old Rec skatepark he says: "The structure... received little maintenance". True insofar as it received very little maintenance from the council, SKDC. However, the skatepark committee chairman, Fuzzy, and a few other volunteers spent plenty of their own time working on it to keep it serviceable over the years.

On the idea of us preferring to have the park unfenced: "A common form of compromise is to limit hours of use to 8pm at latest - although this requires fencing and supervision." I have no idea where he got the idea from that this is a common approach. How many fenced and supervised public skateparks do you know of? (Answers via the forum please - I'm happy to be educated on this). We are also considering other types of anti social behaviour controls (CCTV, webcams, controlled lighting to name a few)

"As a voluntary group it recognises that it cannot guarantee the continuity needed to manage such a facility for ten or twenty years." True, but we are not going to cut and run once the new park is built. Some form of committee will remain, to liase between the users, the residents and the council, to organise events/competitions etc. Plus we intend to budget for a certain amount of ongoing maintenance costs.

On a target date for completion he says: "It would probably be unrealistic to expect it before 2012." His guess is as good as ours on this so just bear in mind that this is exactly what he's doing here: guessing.

Let us know what you think of the article via the forum:

http://www.stamfordskatepark.co.uk/forum