Cleaning up Southside parks....

FiannaGym.com

Hi,

My Name is Pearse Stokes and I am a long-time resident of Dundrum. I sent a letter to DLRCoCo which I have basically copied below. Anyone interested in getting this initiative done should see this thread.

The park in Balalley, Dundrum, is quite a nice park and always has had lots of use. When I was growing up there were tennis courts there that have since fallen into a dilapidated state. They have no fence around them, no nets and the lines are gone. Now they are covered in broken glass etc. This all adds up to a feeling that the park is in general, one of disregard and as such the "knacker drinking" and "anti-social behaviour" in the park is on the increase. It seems that sometimes the park in the evening is only for people of a rowdy nature.

I work as an anthropologist and pay particular attention to obesity and anti-social behaviour in adolescents and through this I discovered the Bushy Park skate park. Having researched this it is built on the same platform (2 tennis courts) as I propose in Balalley. So it is very possible and highly effective.

Dundrum and Sandyford are in the process of a boom. From Dundrum Town Centre all the way up to the Dublin Mountains there has been a surge of Housing, affordable housing and apartment developments. All of which need greater recreational facilities than are currently provided. A park near-by (Ballaly Park) recently lost its playground facilities. With this boom in population we need to see a development of recreational areas. Once again through my research I have found that skate parks provide a fantastic method for councils to support the young population.

All of my research, and all of the international research points to the following;
Skate parks result in decreased "anti-social behaviour"
Have a positive effect on health (long term)
Integrate a disenfranchised youth "back into" society at large

So it is clear to see that skate parks are a positive (indeed I would claim purely positive) investment. I coach martial arts and would love to see money invested there, but the truth is the skate park requires no supervision (my research supports this, indeed my research has shown decreased level of hostility and increased levels of activity in parks that are "unmanaged") and are solid concrete, in short, easy to run.

Which brings me to my next point; what the park should look like.
There are a variety of park "types" as I am no doubt you are aware. Cutting costs by choosing lower quality ramps does two things;
Firstly it annoys skaters that they have been given poor quality equipment and therefore alienates them further.
Second the equipment becomes dilapidated quickly and to use the criminologists' term, we have a "broken windows effect", that is to say dilapidated equipment sends a message that the council/government etc, just don't care and that it is okay to abuse the area. In fact this is exactly what is happening right now in Balalley with the disused tennis courts.

So the park should be an "insitue" concrete park. There are some key elements and components that I have researched to make parks useful and safe over a long term. A simple example is placement of "boundary" equipment. In many parks around Ireland this has not been given the attention it needs. Leading to "liminal" areas in the park where people congregate. This is a foolish and dangerous as people congregating on a rugby pitch. It is up to the designers to address this in the lay-out of the park. Accurate planning of the park can make is self managed.

I am sure you can see the benefits of a skate park to this rapidly expanding population and to cleaning up and developing an unused and dangerous area. I hope you will consider this.
Many thanks.

Pearse Stokes

Thanks guys...

Peace

Fratton Fred

I helped run a youth club in the UK and the council took our 5 a side pitch away from us and turned it into a skate park. It was uncontrolled and therefore used all day and into the night. We were told that we would have no responsibility for it, but it is difficult to ignore a 13 year old who has just taken the skin off their arm or put their front teeth through their bottom lip, so we became nursemaids. It was also difficult to ignore the BMW that came along around 9:30 most evenings to sell cannibis to the kids at the skate park.

However,

The skate park was moved to a park, with a gate and a warden that locked up and a cctv system that scared off the drug dealers. The place is a massive success and is a significant beneift for the youth of the area, so good luck with your suggestion.

griffdaddy

Fratton Fred wrote:

It was also difficult to ignore the BMW that came along around 9:30 most evenings to sell cannibis to the kids at the skate park.

Yeah it's a hard habit to kick alright

FiannaGym.com

Hey Fratton Fred,

Could you elaborate on your points? What park? Where in the UK etc?

I'd seriously like to hear more stories like that, good or bad.

Pearse

Wishbone Ash

Pearse - this is the North County Dublin Forum!

We have little knowledge of "the far side"!

Fratton Fred

FiannaGym.com wrote:

Hey Fratton Fred,

Could you elaborate on your points? What park? Where in the UK etc?

I'd seriously like to hear more stories like that, good or bad.

Pearse

The original one was built, as I said, on the five a side pitch of our youth club. This was a political move by the council who wanted to keep parents happy by building a skate park, but did it on the cheap. Our youth club did not have a good reputation and the lobby to build a skate park included some influential people so we basically got crapped on.

As I said, we were against the park being built in the grounds of a youth centre as we knew we could not manage it (Or the broken arms etc that go with it). Although there was a sign up stating the opening times of the park, the fence was an old 10 foot chain link fence which soon got broken down and the kids were using the park all hours of the day and night. It was in a secluded area so there were no neighbours to complain. It was not long before we were locking up at night and saw the same car parked up with young people walking back and forth. One of my colleagues was a Metropolitan Policeman and he showed them his warrant card a few times and told them to clear off but they just came back when we weren’t there.

After the police (and firebrigade) complained, the skate park in the youth club got closed down, but the council pulled off a master stroke, my understanding of which is this; Sainsbury’s wanted to redevelop their town centre store, which would mean changes to a multi-storey car park and a major roundabout. This would involve eating into Kidwells park the main town centre park. The council voiced concerns about this and threatened to refuse planning permission (which was a negotiating tactic, no more, UK planners are a lot more switched on than their Irish counterparts) anyway, the parties came up with a deal which meant Sainsbury’s would compensate the people of Maidenhead for losing the corner of a park, by building a very good kids play area, a skate park with proper fences and some really good equipment and refurbish the existing netball courts and building a new outside football pitch. This is all managed by the Leisure Centre which adjoins the park and a security guard patrols the area as well as there being several CCTV cameras linked to the town centre monitoring network (I'm sure you have heard, every town in the UK has extensive CCTV)

Sainsburys obviously made a big thing about this, showing their commitment to the community etc and it is a great win win for everyone.

Supermarkets are great, they love to show how dedicated they are to the community and if they can save a council a few grand then as far as they are concerned the council will owe them a favour when it comes to town planning. Don’t Tesco Ireland have their head office in the “borough”? I think they are also planning a new store in Cherrywood, so they may be after a “Favour” at the moment. Or how about Dundrum Town Centre, I’m sure they would love to show their dedication to the community and also get a few of the kids out of the shopping centre. I’m sure their security and CCTV could keep an eye on things as well.

Good luck, I would be interested to know how you get on.

details of the new skate park can be found here http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/web/sk8_skateparks_index.htm