Proposed skateboard park (From Gazette & Herald)

Proposed skateboard park

YOUR front page report (September 17) on the question of the proposed skate board park at Pickering motivates me to comment. Having lived in Pickering all my life (over 80 years) and having lived all that time in close proximity to the sports ground, I have watched its development over the years. I have watched the building of the sports clubhouse and welcomed its facilities for the football, cricket and bowling clubs. I have watched the erection of the spectator stands on the football ground, the installation of the floodlights and the erection of that unsightly wall on the western side of the football ground, none of these events were objected to.

It is behind this wall that well-meaning people would like to provide a skate board facility for our children, a facility that Malton and Norton have provided for their children, and a move that the police acknowledge has reduced the instances of nuisance crimes significantly. This facility would occupy a tiny portion of an area that is currently unoccupied and used as a dumping ground by the football club, and a site that is further removed from any dwelling houses than any other within the town's limits that I have been able to find.

The sports ground is the natural site for sports activities of all kinds indeed that is what it is intended for, and with its ready access from all parts of the town, is ideal. The occupiers of Willow Court, the nearest dwelling houses, have raised no objection and, if this site is refused because of the objection of the football club, there will be no other site so eminently suitable in our town.

The main objections seems to be that there would be some noise created by the children, the objection coming mainly from the football club. I would ask them to name me a sport that creates more noise than a football match in full swing. Children are far better burning off their excess energy in a skate board park than finding other, less friendly, activities, and I would ask the football club to think again on this issue, and to consider the wider aspect of sport in our town, rather than just their own particular interests.

Updated: 13:02 Wednesday, October 01, 2003