Bright ideas sought for city skatepark
A new lick of paint and dash of bright colour could soon be on the cards at Rutherford Park.
It’s home to one of New Zealand’s oldest concrete skateparks and thanks to the Youth Council it’s in for a spruce-up.
‘‘The competition we’re running is for someone under the age of 24 to come up with an awesome painting that can be painted on to the skatepark,’’ Youth Council member Campbell Rollo said.
‘‘It can be anything, there’s no category or theme as such, so we can be open. It might represent Nelson or it might represent them.’’
Rollo and fellow Youth Councillor Emma Edwards said council staff had come to them with a suggestion the Youth Council lead the skatepark project.
‘‘With the new Trafalgar Centre [next to it] this kind of pulls it down so we wanted to bring this up so the whole area is a really cool place,’’ Edwards said.
‘‘A lot of the time during this the year [the Youth Council] has just been doing submissions so it’s cool to get out... we’ve had to do some promotion within schools so getting to talk to everyone is really cool.’’
The concrete skatepark has smatterings of graffiti, but is otherwise a grey bowl on the edge of the park.
Rollo said it would be a good chance for a young person to make their mark on Nelson, as well as win their choice of a $200 Cheapskates voucher or a group pass to Tahunanui’s trampoline park.
He said the competition opened last week and already they’d had people give positive feedback.
‘‘[The winner] will work alongside staff members at the council and they’ll have a time to come along and paint it on... if people have wacky ideas [beyond just painting it] the council can look at that.’’
Nelson man Matt Peacey was at the skatepark with his two children on Sunday and said with the cycle paths from the Maitai connecting to Rutherford Park, it was a great spot to visit.
‘‘There were heaps of kids down here yesterday so it’s great if they can do something to make it more attractive and encourage more people to use it,’’ Peacey said.
He said Rutherford Park’s skatepark was great for his young children, aged two-and-a-half and six, as it wasn’t as full-on as Neale Park.
The competition to design the skatepark closes on September 11.
Entry forms are available at Nelson City Council, local high schools, or from the Youth Council Facebook page.