Rad Days

Yorkshire's Coast line has now gained some extra surf.  Whitby, Scarborough and Bridlington have great smooth freeformed concrete skateparks to keep you entertained.  These waves will never go flat.

Whitby - West Cliff Head

This U shape bowled skatepark is situated on the open ground on West Cliff, next to the old paddling pool and Go Karting.  Parking is free and right next to the skatepark, if you get there early enough or it is out the holiday season.  It is floodlit which is a bonus for the shorter days or late night sessions, however I am not sure what time they turn off (hopefully someone will inform us).

Whitby Skatepark on West Cliff, Yorkshire, U.K

Whitby Skatepark at Night, loads of close free parking

Whitby FREE skatepark on West Cliff, North Yorkshire Coast, U.K

Scarborough's Skatepark and BMX Pump Track - Hairy Bob's Skatepark

Ideally located between the North Bay and South Bay at Scarborough, hopefully to far to walk for all the Chav's and robbers out there.  Parking is Pay and Display between certain times and is right next to the Skatepark.  You have the lovely view over the North Bay Surf and the Promenade to practise your manuals on.  As you can see from the pictures below there is a bowl section with different levels and a street course area too.  Just behind that is a BMX Pump track with Tarmac berms and the usual jumps. 

It is floodlit too, I am not sure what time they switch off thou.  If anyone wants to inform us please feel free.

All this is free, so ride it well and respect it, as there must have been a lot of hard work and effort involved from all parties to produce a awesome place to ride.  Let just hope there's many more places like this cropping up around the country, and move away from the 'off the shelf ' generic skate ramps.

Get your heads together and get involved and just look at the results.  It may take 2- 5 years to get it built, so just think if you are say 13 now you best get your fingers out and get fund raising before you become to the darker side of life. 

Scarborough Skatepark, North Bay, Yorkshire Coast, U.K

Hairy Bob's Bowl Section at Scarborough, Yorkshire Coast, U.K

Scarborough's-BMX-Pump-Track-at-Hairy-Bobs-Skatepark

Hairy Bob's Street section at the Skatepark, Scarborough, U.K

Scarborough-BMX-Pump-Track-at-Hairy-Bobs-Skatepark - The Rear View

Check out Hairy Bob's website  for future events and news.

Bridlington Skatepark - Gasworx Skatepark

This is another awesome skateaprk that is only 30 minutes away from Scarborough, so you could get yourselves a weekend or day trip going down the Yorkshire Coast.

There is a minimal charge to enter this skatepark as it is supervisied at all times which is not a bad thing really.  It is fenced off and secure, so you should only get riders using it and not any wasters trying to ruin your session.

Check out the website for full details - Gasworx Skatepark , Briblington North Yorkshire.

Gasworx Skatepark, Bridlington - Bowl Section with Pool Coping

Gasworx Skatepark, Bridlington, North Yorshire, U.K

GasWorx-Skatepark-Bridlington, North Yorkshire-Street-Section

If there any more or future plans for great Skateparks, please post it on here so that all can check them out.

Just thinking with all these bowls cropping up, nearly all the British built ones seem to have flat bottoms and no split levels. Unlike the USA built one at Safron Walden.

I ridden the one in Marsailles, Saffron and the one at Doncaster (flat bottom). It seems more fun and and you can get some really speed with bowls with split levels and more contours.

Is it what the riders want or is it that the British contractors are not experienced in creating bowls with more contours.

Are the councils opting for the off the shelf components contractor as they are on their approved list, how do they compare a park built by Dreamlandskateparks compared to others in the market?

I hope this isn't be short sighted in the long term for the skaters and bmxers, when we were sold something which could have been more creative with the funding.

Just a thought, these questions have properly been asked already.

If split level bowls are the ones we want, then is it the cost of extra depth, which gets them omitted from any designs.

Just concerned that we are building all these nice parks, and its not what we really want in some situations, because we may not know what we want at these early stages of mass concrete Skatepark construction across the country.

On looking around at the parks in design stage and on the internet/magazines it seems that a lot of the parks with bowls in are on one level with differing heights around the top instead of having split level/waterfalls in the bowl section.

I was just wondering if this is the best way/easiest or the cheapest way to construct a bowl section. Is this something we want or what our contractors can provide.

Unless the user has ridden some good parks in the States and Europe then they will have nothing to compare it to.  I think we need to have a quick learning curve on these new skateparks so we do not live to regret it some day.   As it may be a long time coming around for them to be renewed or altered.

I skated Hayle bowl over the summer holidays and they have a rollin area, which I though was good to encourage a new smaller and younger users in to out much loved past times.  This bowl area seemed to be used more to me, because of the rollin area, more so than say Saffron where you have to drop in. Which can be very daunting on concrete for the first time.

As long as the budget allows us, is it worth considering on all new projects with bowls to have Rollins.   As long as the designs are creative and challenging, isn’t it worth adding a small rollin for the future?.

Should we have a lessons learned database on every major skatepark project to help get it right sooner. We may have it place already, hopefully.  I just hope we are getting it right for the future and enjoyment of riding.

I don’t know how competent our concrete contractors are in comparison to the USA ones, if we have inexperience in this area should we get established companies from the States on board to help us out.   Alternatively we could possibly have a performanced based contract with an over seas company to get around the tendering process. As like the Bournemouth Artifical Reef project, who used this form of contract.

Do the Councils hold back a retention on the contractor if the project and surface is not up to scratch?.

The other thing, it’s a shame with all these new CDM regulations in the building that Preliminary costs on a project may be 15% of the overall total before anything has started on site. Are there ways to save money here to put towards our parks?.

Just a few questions, that have probably been asked before somewhere already.

I’ve been skating (not much) off and on since 1984, but always paid an interest on the scene and how the skateparks have come and gone. What companies have jumped on the band wagon to sell all these off the shelf parks to the mislead Councils.  It’s great to see these new concrete parks cropping up around the country as I think it is positive step forward for Skaters, BMXers and Inliners.  The industry as a whole will benefit as I believe these groups have a good community structure.

On the links page, there are names of established Skatepark contractors that are now building awesome parks.  Lets just keep the Cowboys away from ripping off the Council's and building skateparks that will never be used.