But our youth work, and the fact we
were a social enterprise, meant the
council looked quite favourably on
us and helped find a space for us to
move to when we were given a two-
month notice to leave.
Was there any delay between
closing that park down and
establishing a new one?
It was actually a seamless transition.
We saw a newspaper ad asking for
expressions of interest for a used,
empty swimming pool. Tim and I
spent the next few weeks writing this
massive document, and it worked
perfectly that we had a year’s worth
of accounts, had policies and
procedures in place, everything
we needed. We were the only
organisation that ticked every box to
take it on.
But the process took quite a
while, and two months after we’d
put the expression of interest in,
an old youth centre came up in
Winterbourne, on the other side of
Bristol, with skate ramps already in
there.
I called up about the wood and they
said “we’ve had no interest for the
building, so why don’t you take it
on?” We threw an expression of
interest on that building as well, and
miraculously, we left the old college
site on the Monday and on Tuesday
we picked up the keys to the youth
centre.
Wow crazy! So you went from
having no home to suddenly
having two venues?
Well, the consultation process and
the logistics involved meant that
it took three years to finally get
the pool. In the meantime we had
this youth centre in Winterbourne.
We opened up a couple of rooms,
put a mini-ramp in there, added a
proper café and a shop, and had it
all running while we were jumping
through the hoops with the pool.
Winterbourne wasn’t the ideal
setting, as it’s a bit out of town, and
it’s not very big. We always had our
hearts set on the swimming pool.
It must’ve been a relief to finally
get that signed off though.
It was, but there were a couple
of hiccups along the way. When
we first saw the pool it had only
just been unoccupied, so it had
all the electrics, all the plumbing,
the windows were intact, it was a
functioning building. But you can
imagine what happens to an empty
building over three years. When
we took over in 2015 every single
window was broken, every door
broken, people had stolen lead
off the roof, and all the wires were
stripped. There was about $60 grand
worth of damage, and getting it all
back up to spec was a massive
learning curve for us.
I bet. With the buildings being
owned by the council, are you
leasing them?
We have a 25-year lease on both
properties, so we’re here for the
next 23 years at least. And it’s
highly unlikely the council will want
these buildings back after that, so it
wouldn’t be hard for us to negotiate
a 99-year lease, which is crazy.
That’s unheard of.
The youth centre is open every day
for young people to access, and it’s
a safe environment for them to ride
their scooters, skateboards, BMXs,
whatever. And the swimming pool is
a community resource. The council
doesn’t pay anything towards the
maintenance of the buildings, but
we don’t pay any rent, so that’s a
big reason we’re still around. Our
overheads are a lot lower, and a lot
of parks are struggling because they
pay rents, which always increase as
landlords want more money.
The whole ‘social enterprise’ thing
is a pretty unique concept. Has it
ever been done before?
Historically there’s no money
in skate parks – they’re always
struggling. A lot of organisations
here realise parks are a great tool,
and being a charity means you can
draw down funding for activities for
kids and keeping them healthy. But I
think we’re the only social enterprise
park at the moment.
Other organisations across the
country have called us to find out
how we’ve done it. I think we always
thought we had the model right, but
finally we really know what the right
model is to become a sustainable
skatepark, and I think that is a model
that can be franchised in any city,
really.
The more socially-minded skate
parks there are in the country, the
better it is for skateboarding and
for young people. We want that to
happen.