Anyone present at the final planning meeting may remember a minor disappointment when we were told that the brick stencil would not be applied to the red bank next to the steps due to the final aesthetic of the edges of each face. This as I said, was only a minor setback and for me, knowing the designers were concerned with the potential quality issue gave me further confidence in the builders giving a high quality finish to the park.
I'd noticed a pallet of red bricks had been delivered on my last visit and since then I have been wondering what they were for - you don't generally use bricks for structural work on this kind of job. As concrete usually covers the blockwork there is no need to use expensive attractive bricks when you can use fewer, less expensive blocks. And I couldn't remember any actual brickwork on the plans. Well...
Remember the semicircular wall at the top of the right bank looking from the gate which was planned to be red concrete? The builders decided that as they couldn't give us the brick stencil on the bank, they would face the wall with red bricks instead. Personally I am very pleased that they went ahead with this. The bricks look spot on and the Mortar has been set close to the face of the bricks to give a smooth but textured ride. The banks on either side are also in.
The main up-down ledge has been poured and the bases were getting a final shaping before concreting as I was looking around. The corner bank to the left of the big Jersey barrier has been completed and work is heading towards the manual pads with rebar mesh already in place.
The entire area of the park has now been marked out and the council agreeing to our request for the reclaiming of the grass bank outside the original park fence has really worked to our advantage and given us a considerable extension to the footprint of the park.
Simon Pickering, council Youth Officer in charge of the skate park project has managed to arrange for some walls to be constructed around the park so that artists can concentrate their talents away from the riding surfaces in the park. This has been agreed because the application of spray paints to this young concrete may promote a thin de-lamination of the the surface concrete when wheels repeatedly pass over it.
I think we all understand that we will never completely stop the tags and such from appearing, and I'm sure that most users of the park are of the same opinion as me and not against good quality painting like the work on the old wooden park, but seeing that there will be a number of places dedicated to larger artworks this will hopefully discourage the painting of riding surfaces.
I have been reliably informed that on the parks completion, responsibility will be handed over to the council so that final quality and safety inspections can be conducted, hopefully leading to the opening of the park to the public shortly after.
The park should be open to the public at the end of April.
Please remember that the site is currently closed to the public because it is not safe.
The fences are there to keep EVERYONE out, and the KEEP OUT signs are not there to pretty-up the fence.
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