How the City created its own skate park problem

COMMENT

Council need look no further for the perfect site for a skateboard park – they had one in the St Mary’s Cathedral forecourt but spent several million dollars re-engineering it to keep the kids away.

The forecourt, on the site of the old City Bowling Club, was an early salvo in then Lord Mayor Frank Sartor’s grey-granite campaign.

But, although it “linked” the Cathedral and the Australian Museum, and provided a clearer view to St Mary’s, it was a dud in every other respect.

It was built according to current orthodoxies which demand, for safety reasons, that open public space cannot contain any object that obstructs sightlines. But this results in an introverted, flat, featureless landscape and Olympic tourists didn’t even notice the new park, simply walking across it to reach the more extroverted photo ops of the Cathedral and the Archibald Fountain.

Then the skaters and BMX riders moved in, finding the smooth granite paving and low, broad steps perfect for their sport. Council Rangers chased them out in a permanent game of cat-and-mouse as the highly mobile youths dodged the nasty men.

Yet the site is perfect in town planning terms.

Here are some guidelines from Clover Moore’s Lord Mayoral Minute on the cancelled Millers Point skate park:

“…skate facilities [should] be visible to passers-by, accessible to the whole community and integrated with the surrounding environment and other activities so skateboarding is included as part of the general community.”

Cr Moore said she had “walked central Sydney with City staff as they search for other sites that might provide a useable skate space with sufficient space, manageable impacts and access to public transport, toilets and shops. …a number of sites were discarded due to fundamental problems – too close to residents that would be affected by noise; loss of valued green open space; or lack of consent from relevant government authorities, especially around Darling Harbour.”

Apparently the walk did not pass by Cook + Phillip Park in front of the Cathedral, which is a shame because it ticks all the boxes.

At one point Council Rangers stopped chasing the skaters away and a lively, civilised scene developed where the worst thing you were likely to see was tough skaters skinning their elbows and knees, never uttering a sound in what must have been minor agony. Graffiti was conspicuous by its absence.

But, it’s true, the skating began damaging the fabric of the park and some thought it too close to the succession of wedding photos being taken on the Cathedral steps each weekend.

One response would have been to simply fix the damage or to re-skin the area to be skate-resistant.

But no, skating here was ‘wrong’ because Council had not planned for it, and the multi-million dollar ‘upgrade’, designed to stop the skating, went ahead behind green-painted hoardings.

There were hopes that Archbishop George Pell might intervene, in keeping with Jesus’ line: “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”

Perhaps he still might, and Council might have a Damascus Road revelation and return the space to skaters. Now there’s an idea.

by Michael Gormly