The aims of most community sports projects are usually simple and range from straightforward provision of equipment to crime prevention and safety. Crime prevention particularly is evident as a youth issue in more urban areas.
Urban sports like BMX and inline skating have, in recent years, arguably overtaken the sprawls of urban areas more vigorously than that most British bastion of street sports – football. The notion of the “kick-about” has suffered a little in terms of road safety and the fun-sucking “No Ball Games” signs so thoughtfully sited in ridiculously picture perfect parks and green expanses across the country. How awful if a quick game of footy ruined the azaleas.
Inline skates and BMX’s have ground to success thanks to their adaptability, accessibility, autonomous nature and social potential. Since the 1980’s, council-funded concrete skateparks have been installed with a high degree of success. Livingstone Skate Park (Scotland) is perhaps a poster child for un-supervised, free, council-maintained BMX, inline and roller skating facilities in the UK. The kids frequenting this spot (who include global enthusiasts like Tony Hawke) are more than familiar with the mantra of “Don’t %#&@ where you eat!”
A study by the Welsh Sports Council, observed a reduction in criminal activity, lower truancy rates, and a reduction in anti-social behaviour – a 58% drop in overall civil disorder – in the period following instillation of a council-funded skatepark in Mid Glamorgan during 2003. This was an indoor, supervised skatepark, however the out-of-hours vandalism rate was still very low.
Having said that, there will always be the minority who see roller skating areas, skateparks, tracks and pitches as things to destroy and abuse. The advantage of concrete outdoor parks is that they are quite simply very, very difficult to vandalise.
The provision of community sports facilities such as skateparks, BMX tracks and football pitches is certainly in the interests of the community as a whole, perhaps even more so than the individual and their inline skate