Ballarat skaters have welcomed a new proposal for upgrading the city’s skate parks, with a new major facility to be created at City Oval.
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The open space on the corner Pleasant and Sturt Street was picked due to proximity to the CBD and schools, with construction potentially beginning this financial year.
In City of Ballarat’s ‘Skate and Tween/Teen Facilities Framework’ report, officers state there would be “significant site implications” to altering the City Oval site, including heritage overlay and existing vegetation.
It follows the contentious demolition of the Wendouree Bowl earlier this year, with the Civic Hall skate park flagged to go in favour of the GovHub development.
Skateboarder and former youth councillor Dylan Lewis said replacing the Civic Hall skate park with one at City Oval was a “great idea”, and encouraged residents not to prejudge the skating community.
“It’s great they realise how important it is in Ballarat to put things into place for the future of skateboarding, biking and scooters,” he said.
“I would hope the community would be open-minded and accepting with all these things going forward … and not have ill-informed, pre-conceived notions of what a skate park user is.
“We’re not the negative stereotypes, and we really welcome people to come down, have a chat and see why it is so important to us.”
The ten-year plan to upgrade Ballarat’s skating infrastructure includes the creation of a large plaza at the Len T Fraser reserve, and new skate parks and youth spaces for seven different Ballarat suburbs.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, all bike riding and skate-wheeled sports have grown in popularity or remained steady, and have on average three times the participation rate of the nearest organised sports.
City of Ballarat’s acting community development director Mark Patterson said the municipality were encouraging young people in particular to have their say on the proposal.
“Ballarat's youths have previously told us they would like better public skate and community facilities, and as a result we started reviewing skate and community spaces across the municipality,” he said.
Mr Patterson said the framework will ensure the city has a “clear strategic plan over the next decade to provide accessible, inclusive and relevant activity spaces for our youths in line with current world best practice”.
The draft proposal can be viewed here.