In response to the article titled “Millers Point Skate Park Plan Angers Residents” which appeared in the January 28 edition of the City News.
The Millers Point Skate Park was conceived in a clandestine manner in the dungeons of Town Hall in 2006 by Council Administrators who consulted with Skateboarders, with Youth Workers and with the RTA – BUT NOT WITH THE RESIDENTS OF MILLERS POINT!
Millers Point residents discovered the existance of this Skate Park proposal by way of a press release (3 years later!) in October 2009 and now Councillor Harris says that our complaints are “uninformed” and “prejudiced”.
The residents of Millers Point enthusiastically support skateboarding as an exciting and invigorating sport for the development of our city’s youth and Councillor Harris’s comments are therefore (at best) “insulting”!
Councillor Harris claims that skaters “have nowhere else to go”. Is the Councillor aware that there are 93 skate parks around Sydney, many of which are under utilised and many more have been abandoned completely. There is also a spectacular skate park facility at Homebush Bay.
Councillor Harris also claims that city skaters are “just kids having a good time”. Were the skaters who totally destroyed the Cook & Phillip Park site adjacent to St Mary’s Cathedral (and which has now cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars to refurbish) “just kids having a good time”. And why does Councillor Harris believe that these same skaters will not inflict exactly the same destruction on the Millers Point Village when they get bored with the Western Distributor Skate Park.
Councillor Harris, skaters will skate out and around, up and over every exciting skating challenge they can find – with or without a skate park. And they will skate up and over the plant boxes, courtyards, entrance steps, foyers and railings of the 6 residential apartment buildings and of the Observatory Hotel, all of which are just metres away from the proposed skate park site. And they will then skate up and over the sandstone steps of the heritage listed homes along Kent Street to the Rocks. That is the nature of the sport.
Also, were they “just kids having a good time” that I witnessed spraying graffiti onto the pylons of the Western Distributor (just 3 weeks ago) before they discarded their spray cans in the middle of Kent Street and then skated away down Kent Street to the Rocks. (Reported to Council). And why does the Councillor believe that the Millers Point Village won’t be destroyed by graffiti vandals as a consequence of this proposed skate park, given that graffiti is a part of the skater’s culture and particularly given that Clover Moore plans to incorporate her own form of graffiti as so called “Public Art” into the skate park design.
No Councillor Harris, the residents of Millers Point – and particularly the 2000+ residents who live just metres away from this proposed skate park site, are neither “uninformed” nor are we “prejudiced” but we will
not allow the Millers Point Village to be destroyed as the Cook & Phillip Park was destroyed by aggressive and irresponsible skaters. And there is no way we will tolerate graffiti all over our homes and on the walls of the heritage listed properties along Kent Street.
And NO, Councillor Harris, it has nothing to do with the attidude of “not in my backyard” – although I don’t remember reading that you volunteered to have the skate park in YOUR backyard!
It was most unfortunate of Council not to include the residents of Millers Point in the initial consultative process. To involve us now after 3 years of Council planning – and to now suggest that we are “uninformed” and “prejudiced” is a sad reflection on Council’s attitude towards Millers Point residents and is at best, dismissive.
This is not something we will quickly forget.
by Michael Dockery, Observatory Tower, Millers Point
