New skatepark to be ready by 2020?

New skatepark to be ready by 2020?

The Assistant Economic Development Minister added that he hoped to have the project complete in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at which skateboarding will feature for the first time.

He made the comments while being questioned at the Economic and International Development Scrutiny Panel on Friday.

‘It has been a difficult review of the sites because they have all got benefits but they have also all got issues,’ he said.

‘I do not want another hospital [situation]. I want to find a site and move forward relatively quickly with this and get it done before the 2020 Olympics, which is only now a year away.

‘Trying to find a site that will deliver within that time-frame is difficult. There are going to have to be some compromises around where the final site is to be.’

In May last year, the current skatepark on the New North Quay was closed after CCTV captured people throwing concrete blocks into the nearby marina and climbing up scaffolding onto a large temporary roof on the adjacent Maritime Museum building – in what was just a small number of health and safety-related incidents.

Since then, Ports of Jersey, who own the New North Quay, agreed to re-open the facility until a replacement was built. The company have put forward £50,000 towards the project.

Jardins de la Mer, Coronation Park and Les Quennevais playing fields have all been shortlisted as possible sites.

During the Scrutiny Panel hearing, Senator Pallett said that he was due to meet one of his officers about the preferred site shortly before going back to the public.

‘I will have that meeting, then we are going to have a preferred site, then I think we need to go back to the public and to the skateboard association who have been heavily involved all the way through,’ he said.

‘It is not going to suit everybody and wherever you put it, there will be a neighbour who says I do not want it here but we have said we are going to deliver it and I do not think there was a States Member in the election who said they did not want to deliver it so we should have a consensus.

‘It is very much on the burner and it is not something that has been left. The officers behind the scenes have done an amazing amount of work in terms of a site suitability report that goes into a great deal of detail – the level of detail you would expect when you are making such an important decision.’

– Advertisement –
– Advertisement –