Councillors visit skate park (From Gazette & Herald)

Councillors visit skate park

RYEDALE councillors saw Kirkbymoorside's new controversial skateboard park in action for themselves when they made a fact-finding visit.

Youngsters showed off their skills to prove to the members of the authority's planning committee how much they valued the new park in the Old Road Playing Field.

The park goes before RDC's planning committee on Tuesday for retrospective approval after confusion over whether the scheme had needed permission.

RDC's planning committee is being recommended at the meeting to ask officers to continue to negotiate action "to mitigate the potential for noise impact" on local residents.

Kirkbymoorside's deputy mayor, Coun Gaynor de Barr, told the councillors that since it was opened last autumn it had proved a popular asset for the town's young people. "It is being seen as the best thing to have happened in the town for years," she said later.

Children and their parents attended the site meeting to hear Coun de Barr explain how the town council had supported the initiative and set up the play association to enable outside funding to be won.

"It is very popular and well used," she said. Pupils of the town's county primary school had sent a bundle of letters to the town council backing the park and praising the Kirkbymoorside councillors for their support.

"What the letters do show was not only how much they appreciated the park but that they realised they had to be responsible in the way they use it and that was certainly demonstrated at the site visit," said Coun de Barr.

The site had been litter free which impressed the district councillors, who also went to a neighbour's house to assess the impact of the park on their property.

"Several town councillors have been keeping an eye on the park since it opened and there hasn't been any trouble. In fact I think the traffic going up and down Old Road made more noise than the children using the park."

As a result of the closer links which have now been forged between the council and the school, Coun de Barr, herself a teacher, has accepted an invitation to talk to the pupils during a lesson on citizenship.

Updated: 14:55 Wednesday, February 09, 2005