Anyone near to or holiday round these parts?
Wheelscape are building a new park in Southwold, Sunny Suffolk.
Fingers crossed for some old man friendlyness.
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I’m such a fucking fat, boring, middle aged dad that my first thought was that parking for it will be a nightmare in the summer.
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We all chip in and get a massive air bnb for the UKSF weekender
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You’re not wrong though. Parking can be ‘fun’ there for sure.
My turn to deploy grumpy Dad mode…
AirBnB in Southwold. That’ll take some whip-round!!
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Wasn’t sure where to put this, but thought I would share.
Back in Durham for a few days, and went to a newly built skatepark in the area:
Very small and unambitious, but something in an area that has suffered from having very few skateparks for years. It’s sandwiched between a playground and a football/basketball court. I went yesterday and it was bone dry, but no kids were using it. There were lots playing football or in the playground, but they were avoiding the skatepark. Speaking to a parent, he was saying that kids just weren’t that interested in skatepark-based hobbies at the moment.
I wondered what others’ experiences are. Are people noticing skateparks being less busy? Has there been a noticeable drop off in scooter kids etc. in your respective areas?
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Ive noticed our local had a massive drop off. I think that most of the OG Scooter kids ended up on BMX then vanished at around 18 years old.
Scooter kids seem to be under the age of 7.
I would say skateboarders have dropped off too.
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I don’t think there’s a single kid at my daughter’s primary school into it, the bowl that we have here sits empty most of the time and I see very few kids knocking about with boards, even hardly any younger ones on scooters.
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We definitely have less people coming at our local indoor park than we did 2, 5 or 10 years ago even if we’ve been refurbishing it for a year and a half and people say they’re into it.
I don’t see that many people in outdoor skateparks but I try really hard to go when there’s not going to be anyone around anyway (school days, early mornings etc).
There might be less scooterers around, yeah. I’ve seen a few of them quit and start skating.
Anecdotally - there are no new kids (12+) in my area at all.
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I don’t go to Stoke Plaza much but reckon you can count the actual active local skaters on two hands. There are a few younger lads - maybe 4 I actually speak to. There are a few young girls around my daughter’s age too.
Feels dead but not quite 1993 dead.
Are you guys perhaps comparing things to the post pandemic boom? Not surprised it’s quieter than a few years ago. It’s also month 4 of winter.
Seems busy as ever down here, Brighton has always had a lot of skaters though, despite the lack of street spots.
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Yeah, there’s a little bit of that. An artificial boom is always going to be followed by a lull. But I think there’s something else going on. I’m not seeing as many young skaters out skating at the minute, but also not really using skateparks (whether that’s scooters or whatever). Maybe it’s different in the South where skating has always been a bit more popular.
Skating is fucking hard though. The learning curve is steep/vertical and it’s nowhere near as accessible as football.
looks like this extremely unwell south leeds park is either getting an update or put out of its misery [link]. i get the train past it a couple times a week and have never even seen a scooter there. sent an email to the councillors to try and convince them not to fuck it up, we’ll see how it goes.
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That spine at the front of the picture is jokes. It’s like a bank with a spine 
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but imagine if you found a street version in the wild, people would lose their minds over it.
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That looks like AI built the park
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