A very long shot… I live in a smallish shropshire village probably around 300 houses, there is currently a skatepark which consists of a kicker ramp, a funbox and a grind rail. About 6 months ago i asked the council if they would be able to support funding to improve the equipment to make it more progressive as you can go down the park and aftet about 5 mins you have done. I managed to secure some free ramps from Market Drayton council which was going to be brilliant as they were having the park renovated and wanted the old stuff moved somewhere that would benefit. By the time the parish council had got round to accepting this was a great idea the stuff had gone. Gutted.
Iv been back to Shropshire council since and they came out but didnt seem to say they could do anything without funding and the parish council arent really acting now so im wondering if anyone on here is involved in any of these type projects or knows of ways i could try and secure some equipment to improve the current park? even a couple quater pipes would make it more progressive as there is plenty of room for them and the surface is ready to go

I’ve been involved in something similar. It was a long and tedious process, involving setting up a “Friends of Local Park” group, and working in partnership with local council, parish council, housing association, community police and residents. All that was necessary in order to apply for funding. Good luck, you’ll need it!

Edit: The council should have a officer who can advise on the process.

A mini ramp would probs be more useful than a quarter ramp; that’s what most small parks tend to go for due to the space and the fact quarter ramps are a bit more full on.

kicker ramp, funbox and grind rail? You lucky, lucky bastards.

Our village has just got funding to rebuild our skateboard park. The old one was considered dangerous so removed. The users got a lot of support and the parish council help apply for grants. The total cost of the new park is (I think) about £50k, which they’ve just got funding for. I’ll have to look at the PC meeting minutes to find out who provided the grants so I’ll post again this evening.

We had to start a movement that culminated in fund raising £100k. (We are a large “town” and the skatepark was already large, but the story applies.)

We started with a Bartly Park Facebook group with news and events, had someone a tad older approach council, sit in on meetings.

We managed to agree if we could raise X the council would give a go-ahead. Raised £100k through donations and fund raisers, sponsorship from local biz, etc. Plenty of support.

We had to hold the council to account. At one point the council said it could no longer be afforded as we were short a number of thousands of pounds short of the budget. Luckily we had comprehensive spending documentation that proved where the money went – suddenly that missing figure turned up…

It took a few years but the park there is now fantastic.

ANYWAY – the TL;DR – get community support, get parents on board, show there will be people who will use it. Ask the council what you can do to help – that might be fund raising, or getting quotes, etc.

As mentioned above, our village has just got a grant of ‘up to £50000’ for a new skatepark from WREN. More detail here:
Wern

Having a pump track built in our village (2000ish people) currently thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Awards for All. The parish council and local residents have really helped push this through though apparently.

I am just embarking on a similar project myself. I am hoping to raise money using Big Local funding and anybody else who will cough up.

Suggestions so far.

Tesco’s via Groundworks. Up to £4000 potentially. I think someone who works at Tesco can apply.
Co-op, up to £1000
Landfill money if you close enough to a site (I’m not but oddly two other local projects have managed it.
Halifax bank employees can apply for money too.

Becareful of the council. I know a resident of a west Dorset town involved in the local skatepark action group where the council got the plans off of a skepark builder then “lost” his details and got a local agrecultural firm to build the ramps and maintain. Has not gone well.

http://www.radiiramps.co.uk
Is run by a guy who rides and has worked with lots of councils.

I’ve been involved with a similar project in the town where we live (market town on the edge of the Cotswolds). We raised around £100k from various sources and built a concrete park.

Took a long time to get onto the starting blocks – our site was undeveloped, we had to get some initial development works underway which took ££££ and around 10 years. Once we’d done that, the skatepark was relatively straightforward (!) as we could show a track record of successful delivery.

Tips:
Make sure you engage with the widest possible group of stakeholders
Form a project group. Agree who will be responsible for maintaining the park when it’s built.
Make sure the town/parish council is in favour of the project, you’ll probably need planning permission.
Try to raise some seed funding yourself – it shows commitment to potential funding bodies. Music evening in the local village hall is a good way to do this, sell loads of booze and raffle tickets to the parents of potential users.
Apply for loads of little funding opportunities, rather than hoping to get all the money from one source. There are plenty of pots of money around, you just have to be a bit creative. We got money from, amongst others, the Town Council, one of the village Parish Councils, the local Lions and Round Table groups, the county Police & Crime Commissioner, local churches.
Cultivate as many local contacts as possible.
Lottery funding is a bit of a dead loss, have never managed to succeed with this.
Ensure you get some input from the target user population! Our local youth centre were really helpful in facilitating this engagement, we involved the young people in our tendering exercise.
Get competitive tenders! Many funding bodies insist on seeing evidence of this.
If you’re spending £50-100k on the build, would strongly recommend engaging the services of a professional Quantity Surveyor who will draw up a formal JCT contract with your builder, supervise the works etc.
Once the project looks like it’s going to happen, momentum will build quickly and people will get on board.

Feel free to PM me if you want more details. Our skatepark is very near the HQ of the Heaven of the South event if you ride that and want to have a look. Hopefully will also have a BMX / pump track on site by next year, partially paid for by HOTS 2017!

weve been asking for a skate park for yonks with overwhelming local support but no… the council gave us a bandstand with a shiny copper roof commissioned by a local artist that’s completely unusable on the patch of land the skatepark would have gone.
Local Facebook page now has loads of moans about youths hanging around in town with nowt better to do!

Which Shropshire town is this?