Boy, 9, pitches skate park design
Newmarket boy uses recycled material to bring vision to life
Cooper Green recommends using Newmarket’s geography to design an outdoor skate park. Town staff manned a number of booths at a town hall open house that invited residents to give feedback on a number of park and recreation projects listed in the Recreation Playbook. Among the topics of discussion was the outdoor skate park the town has committed to constructing.
As a video of a skate park demonstration played on a large screen and poster boards displayed possible locations for construction as well as elements that could be included in the design, 9-year-old Cooper entered the room with a model of what he felt the park should include.
“I would go to an outdoor skate park six or seven days a week if I could,” he said, pointing out that he prefers to use a scooter over a skateboard. “An outdoor park is bigger than the indoor park and we wouldn’t have to pay to use it.” The miniature model was constructed from material from his recycling bin and demonstrated how the town could find inspiration right in its own backyard to design the amenity. A large ramp at the back of the model represents Joker’s Hill, curved rails represent the arch at Southlake Regional Health Centre, a bowl represents Fairy Lake and a tree represents the Mulock farm.
Jacob Pearcey, a sports youth programmer and active skateboarder, who was on hand representing the town, was impressed by the level of thought the local youth presented.
“From a recreation standpoint, youth learn to play and then become active for life,” he said. “They begin in a program in a supervised, indoor facility and continue learning outdoors when they have the confidence.”
Resident Brandon Foster has been skateboarding since he was a child and continues to do so. He believes the best location would be the Ray Twinney Complex.
“A lot of the kids that will use the park don’t drive and this location is close to the Viva line,” he said. “It’s also close to the mall and restaurants, so they could make a whole day of it.”