With skateboarding booming in popularity – thanks in part to newly crowned World Champion Sky Brown, her stunning 2020 Olympic medal plus recent X Games title – there’s never been a better time to offer enthusiasts a fantastic new area to practice and Swanley Town Council has done just that.
Opened on 9 December 2022 and designed by specialists Maverick Skate Parks, Swanley Skate Park includes something for everyone – quarterpipes, hips, a taco, rollover, ledge and manual pad, plus a stairset, spine, rail, flatbanks and a miniramp. There’s room for progression whether you skate, scoot or BMX. A £250,000 investment, this beautiful concrete space is accessible to all communities and its street elements and flowy transitions are already attracting an international crowd. BBC The Apprentice contestant J D O’Brien helped to raise the funding through a grassroots campaign, with National Lottery funding and town council money adding to the pot.
At the opening ceremony, J D O’Brien said: “It’s amazing. Since the beginning of 2020 I said I’d do it in six months – it’s taken two years and six months [Covid got in the way!]. So to finally get it done for Swanley and the local skaters is brilliant.”
Save the date for Swanley Skate Park’s first ever Jam on Saturday 15 April from 12 – 4pm. The event will include music, rider demos, competitions and plenty of prizes.
Location: Swanley Recreation Ground, Swanley, Kent, BR8 7BU
Skateboarding GB is celebrating a huge surge in young people wanting to take up skateboarding. With an estimated 100,000 adults known to take part each month and 100 extra younger people signing up each week, it is an industry expanding at a rapid rate. The number of young women taking up skateboarding for the Duke of Edinburgh Award has leapt up 800% in the last five years. Skateboarding is set to be included in 2024 Paris Olympics and by some measures is the sixth most popular sport in the world (in terms of number of participants). It also has an economy worth about £1.6bn! Online enthusiasm is driving the appeal, with people posting videos of themselves skating: there were 11 billion views across the skateboarding hashtag on TikTok in 2021 alone.
While the Swanley Skate Park is definitely the newest kid on the block, there are plenty of other skateparks in the district, at Greatness (Sevenoaks), West Kingsdown, Edenbridge and Westerham.