By Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Esson
The start date for the conversion of a former crazy golf course into a £1.3 million skatepark has been earmarked for this October with completion expected to take up to 12 months.
Thanet District Council (TDC) plans to build the new skatepark in Cliftonville on the site of a disused crazy golf course on Ethelbert Crescent.
Covering almost an acre, the park could boast various-sized bowls, ramps and ledges, capable of catering for 100 users.
TDC is now seeking a private firm to design and construct the sports facility, posting the contract on the Kent Business Portal.
The project, which is part of the £22.2m Margate Town Deal, originally had funding of £750k but last March an additional £175,000 was reallocated after £500,000 was withdrawn from the Oval Bandstand and Lawns project. Last October TDC agreed to add a further £350,000, moved from a Town Deal highways and signage scheme. The total sum includes £59,000 match funding from the council and £100,000 from artist Tracey Emin.
There was already a skatepark on the site from 2013-14 known as Little Oasis.
It was the product of the local community coming together to build it, but TDC ruled it unsafe and had it flattened in 2014.
Previously, a TDC spokesperson said: “The aim is for construction to begin in the spring of 2025 with completion by March 2026, in line with requirements of the Town Deal.”
However, the entry on Kent Business Portal says, “The contract is anticipated to commence upon October 2025 for a duration of 12 months.”
The online entry seeking a private firm to help TDC explains the authority wants a partner “with the experience, track record, capability and capacity to deliver a skatepark new build of the scale and complexity outlined.”
It adds: “The contract will include consultations and engagement activity to ensure the proposed design meets with local aspirations, has a degree of challenge to suit all levels of abilities, will achieve planning approval and can be delivered within the project budget and timescales. (the project needs to be delivered and operational by mid July 2026, with a 3 month defects period).”
The contract has an estimated value of £1.1m, a council spokesperson confirmed. The cut off date for tenders is August 26.
The skatepark, kiosk and toilets, will remain under the Thanet council for management, maintenance and repair. Margate Skateboard Club CIC, headed up by Skate Pharm’s Nic Powley and Dan Cates, is expected to have an “ appropriate agreement to enable them to use the skatepark to build community cohesion, engagement, participation and link local communities to health activities.”
The kiosk will be let through a commercial agreement, with the income from the concession being ring fenced to a fund management, maintenance and repair of the skatepark site and any ongoing costs.
Skateboarding has seen an increase in popularity in recent years, being featured at the 2020 Olympic games for the first time.
In 2022, F51, the world’s first multi-storey indoor skatepark opened in Folkestone.
TDC says the Cliftonville skatepark needs to be open and delivered by mid-July 2026.
TDC also previously said it will be made out of concrete, but the exact design and structures will be worked out by the successful contractor.
Hilarious timeframes how this is going to be achieved is shocking 😳
This article claims work will start on the Cliftonville Skatepark in October, but that simply isn’t realistic. According to standard RIBA project stages, a build cannot begin without having completed key stages: planning (Stage 3), technical design (Stage 4), and contractor appointment (Stage 5). As of now, there’s no planning permission, no finalised design, no cost certainty, and no contractor in place.
This isn’t just behind schedule, it hasn’t even reached the pre-construction phase. Suggesting a start date of October is deeply misleading and sets false expectations for the community.
The contract is expected to start in October and run for 12 months (so there will be a contractor). Those are the requirements set in the business portal. Whether it is achieved remains to be seen but those are the contract details
The contract running for 12 months is nonsense if as the article states the park needs to be – delivered and operational by mid july 2026- so a max of 9 1/2 months. Can be argued the defects period of 3 months is to ne included , but for a concrete structure you’d surely want a much longer defect period to take account of defects resulting from settlement of the sub base.
Whole thing is even more farcical if the contractor is going to decide the design and construction, quite what will companies be tendering for? The opportunity to spend 1.1m on bumpy concrete?
All that concrete, every ton = ton of carbon so how are they going to address that pollution. All these houses are doing the same. How many tons of concrete being used??? And how is that being offset, would be nice to know
Who cares, a bit of extra carbon is’nt going to be a doomsday event. Plus you’d need a huge number of digits on your calculator to compare it to HS2.
How many tons of carbon went into building your house and the roads you drive on to and from your house ? don’t hear you moaning about that carbon but a play scheme for the local youths has you rushing out in all your tree hugging save the planet righteous indignity. here’s perspective if Britain went completely net zero tommorow it would make -0.000001% to global warming so a skatepark in Cliftonville is going to make zero difference.
He may be local, but it’s been a long time since Uncle Albert in the photo was a youth!
You are a complete waste of space and one day i hope to have the pleasure of meeting you, which is unlikely to be pleasant for you. Once again i suggest you take a good hard look in the mirror before criticising anyone’s personal appearance.
Criticising? Uncle Albert looked lovely.
I stick by my comment that this does not improve the area though (I’d rather live near a Crazy Colf course than a Skate Park!), and why not respond to Tony Flaig’s comment that you already have a largely disused Skate Park at Hartsdown?
This was going to happen 4 years ago? And now public opinion is not happy with concrete coverage. That’s site has been taken over by nature. Have they lost their window of opportunity.?
A Crazy Golf course is being converted into a Skate Park… yet people STILL insist the area is improving!
To summarise the above:
“A thing isn’t for me..whaaaaaaa I hate it”
A total waste of money, to think of all the real good that amount of money could do (tax payers money, not government money). But we live in a country that prides itself, in white elephants.
Totally agree. Said it all along. It will be covered in graffiti 5 minutes after its built too. Delightful 😳
Didn’t Hartstown have a skateboard park?
Surely if Thanet District Council has millions to slosh around, wouldn’t it be better to use that to breath life back into Thanet. Perhaps restore the Theatre Royal.
There will be a positive outcome from this as there are no free skateparks around the area so this will bring alot of people together as a community
Only free for the users. Not free for the tax payers that have helped fund it nor will it be free for the council tax payer going forward , hard to see that the concession income is going to cover management repair and maintenance , plus being under TDC it’ll have to be insured by them as well.
If the areas cretin bottle smashers take a shine to the facility who’s going to be paying for endless cleanups?
Good for parts of the community maybe , but will take trade from the Olympic cafe and the pay to ride parks , will they survive the subsidised competiton they’ll be facing?
Ne interesting to see how this pans out and how much it costs thanet to provide this boost to a relatively small section of the community.
People that hate this clearly dont understand the good this do for local under 18’s