Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
It’s but people devastating are determined to fix this
Parkour coach Peter says public are promising to help repair the damage done in arson attack
Users of the hugely popular Coatbridge parkour facility have told of their shock and dismay after it was destroyed by fire – but are determined to ensure the internationallyknown park is reconstructed.
Visitors to West End Park and nearby residents were shocked to see the £111,000 purpose-built free-running course, consisting of vertical walls, handrails and jumps, go up in flames last Tuesday evening.
The fire came just before the start of the summer holidays – and mere days after thousands of pounds of damage was caused to recently-opened Glen playpark in Whinhall by vandals setting swings alight.
Parkour coach Peter McKee had been honing his skills at the awardwinning facility in West End Park on Tuesday afternoon – but soon received the “devastating” news about its destruction.
He runs Parkour Scotland and was among the local enthusiasts who teamed up with North Lanarkshire five years ago to assist with the design and creation of the park, the largest free facility for the sport in the UK.
The 26-year-old told the Advertiser: “Shortly after I’d left the park on Tuesday, I started getting pictures and messages telling me it was ablaze.
“I went down later that evening and it was upsetting to see it all burnt, charred and shut off.
“Everyone’s just devastated – so many kids use the park, including many who haven’t heard of the sport of parkour but still use it to explore that space and play with friends. Now they can’t do that it while it’s shut off.
“This will have a massive impact on the local community. As soon as school finishes it’s full of kids, and we’d been hoping to run workshops and classes for children there again this year as we’d done last summer.
“Kids’ clubs take the whole group there to play and I have friends who’ve come from all over the world – Germany, Denmark, even the US – to train at this course.”
Fellow parkour enthusiast Annie Chalmers said: “We worked on getting this park built for so many years, convincing councillors, police and funders of our dream.
“It was never empty, always full of kids, families and movers. It’s a loss to the community as a whole.”
North Lanarkshire Council estimate that the cost of the damage “could be as high as £50,000”. Officials are unable to say if and when it might be repaired but plan to speak to its original funders.
Coatbridge man Peter said: “Some of us who were involved in getting the park built are meeting with the council this week and we’ll start looking at ways of raising funding to get it fixed. We know a lot of people in parkour circles and want to help get it moving.
“There’s been a really large response from the general community. People are outraged and want to do something about it.
“Very quickly, I had a message from Waysiders/Drumpellier RFC offering the whole team to lend a hand with getting the park restored when it comes to that – to have that support from other local clubs and from the people in Coatbridge is fantastic.”
Regeneration manager Michele Battersby said: “It’s too early to say if and when we’ll be in a position to address the damage caused by the arson attack. However, it clearly can’t be left like that.
“There’s fencing around the site and no-one should use the facility in this condition. We’ll be carrying out a full assessment of the damage caused and talking to the original funders of the park to see what support may be available.”