Is Hull to be the next skate utopia of Great Britain?
We sincerely hope so. Hull City Council have recently outlined their plans to render the city as ‘skate friendly’, to which this vision has been put onto paper as a 10-year plan (2016-2026). Hull is accelerating towards national identity and these investments are assured to put the city on the map as one of the UK’s top skate destinations.
The generational changes in skateboarding may not always be for the betterment of skate culture, granted, but more provisions and means to skate can only ever be a positive thing, right?
Following Hull’s recent financial advances in building 10 new facilities for its skate parks, there’s reference of extending this further, with scheduled pop-up skate events in 2017. Councillor Daren Hale told Sidewalk that “with the support of Rockcity we will work with partners across all sectors to enhance the profile of skateboarding at a national and international level. We will also develop, amongst other things, a Code of Conduct that promotes Best Practice for skateboarders.”
For the moment this all seems great, but also vague. Could this potentially mean a relaxation on hostility towards the general skateboard community?
Mark English from Rockcity, was quoted in Kingpin as saying “The council will ‘consider skateboarding’ for all new public space, buildings and so forth. Some areas will not be suitable, but at sites where skateboarding can happen safely (i.e. away from traffic) the city will ‘build in’ skateboarding, rather than work to stop it.”
Parks are the training ground, so to speak, and if the Hull City Council do follow through with ‘building in’ skateboarding to disused areas in the city, this will certainly elevate Hull’s national skate status. The city could potentially appease all skating styles – parks, plazas, and street spots.
Along with the emergence of skateboarding in the 2020 Tokyo olympics, skateboarding is ‘expected’ to see a sharp rises in popularity – this is something skateboarding should welcome, and it’s great to see Hull have opened up the city to skateboarding with welcome arms. Arts and culture demographics have stated they are dedicated prioritisers of the plans due to an increased surge in youth participation in skateboarding.
It seems more and more councils across the country are supporting ‘diverse’ sports such as skateboarding. And for those old school heads that preferred the days of skateboarding being an esoteric whisper in the cultural underground – it’s important to have an ear for popular culture, lets now watch skateboarding grow, for better or for worse.
Skateboarding has always been progressive, UK councils should now recognise this and step up. Hull have come through in perfect example. It’s now crucial the right active partners get involved in Hull’s skate city project, and it’s even more important the skate quotient across the UK now push even harder in the physical sense, but also the figurative one – we need to push the councils to support skateboarding.
It appears Hull are acute to the rhythms and cultural idioms in skateboarding; if the city is set to become a living, breathing skate utopia, then I think at the very least, people should be creasing a smile – this is hugely exciting news. If the 10-year plan and vision is a success, how many more cities will follow?
