Skate park pipe dream

Sir,

In 2017 The Argyllshire Advertiser ran a story entitled ‘Skate park pipe dream a reality for Lochgilphead’. Nearly three years later I fear the dream is still a long way from that reality.

Mid Argyll Youth Development Services (MAYDS) certainly seems to have ambitious plans for an indoor skate park and this is to be lauded, however, a quick look online will show an apparent apathy with regard to moving forward with the project.

A young man created the Lochgilphead Skate Park Association on Facebook in 2012, yet a final post in 2016 indicated how little the proposal had moved forward. If the project needs more money to actually get it built we need to know how much, so that appropriate funding can be sought.

What is causing the project to take years to come to fruition?

The potential for help by the £3 million Tarbert and Lochgilphead Regeneration Fund in 2016 was dashed when councillors instead decided that improvements to road junctions, streets, a cycle track and indoor bowling were more important, and allocated a staggering £250,000 to feasibility studies for these projects alone; this is before any work is actually done, you understand.

That is a great deal of money for feasibility studies and design works.

Let us be realistic – in nine long years the community has gone from the initial excited buzz about a skate park to finally managing to purchase a plot of land upon which to build it in early 2018. From there it seems the project has not been able to move.

In the meantime the youngsters who worked so hard to give momentum to the project appear to have given up hope and are now probably giving thought to employment prospects rather than having fun.

It is a sad state of affairs.

But rather than giving up hope, let us reignite this campaign for our children to have the dream of a skate park in Lochgilphead whilst they are still young enough to enjoy it.

Nick MacIneskar, Tayvallich