Interview 1 Jahim (begins at 00.01.54)
I heard about it from my mate Rafe, he brought me down here its not too bad, its a bit bumpy and stuff but its go some stuff I can grind on when I get better. I think instead of demolishing it they should upgrade it as oppose to getting rid of it completely, cus if its the only one in the city centre it doesn't make sense cuss I think the closest one is like Toxsteff or something so its bait, I aint getting a bus know what I mean?
I think that if it was a barklys I would expect it if they're not building anything to get rid of it completely but im surprised its a coop cuss they're meant to be a good bank and to get rid of something that, I donna for people to use and theres not a lot of things to like go to that are free in liverpool theres always a cost for something especially cuss im always skint as a student it would bench to have something to go to for a hobby.
Interview 2 (begins at 00.23) Rafe
I heard about new bird when I played a gig over at the contemporary urban centre its a sort of music venue over the road from here saw it thought it looked like quite a nice park so I told my mate Jahim about it he skates I don't really skate so
Its an all right skate park its a bit messy it looks like it could have a tidy up but its pretty good people are skating around its bringing people together.
It all be pretty bad if it closed down but if its owned by the coop and they don't want anybody hurting themselves on it then fair enough but coop are meant to be a company for the community and this is a community project.
Interview 3 (00.20) Robert VincentI probably noticed the park going up 18months two years ago.
I think its good that kids are spending their time putting something like this together rather than nothing and I think its a good thing that kids are coming here and skating but generally keeping themselves out of mischief really I kind of see that as what it is.
Interview 4 (00.00) Pat GreyThey are supposed to be community orientated and that, I think its a really good idea, what would bother me is do people come from different parts of the town down here from different parts of liverpool?
Over on our side they are trying to get skate parks set up in some of the parks and the local residents don't want them know. My sons 16 and he wants somewhere to hang out the local residents think its going to attract hoods and yobbos and things like that but actually they are just social places I think they are a really good idea. Especially if they have have taken the time to set this up themselves. The insurance isnt there some way to get the funding for the insurance
I think thats a really good idea, squatters rights and all that at least they're turning it over and doing something useable and I think the face they have done all the graffiti artwork and everything its not going to be ruined and everything is it. If people get involved and put there own stamp on it it tends to keep in good condition I mean really this is in good condition you see some places that are all rubbish on them I would rather see soothing like this.
Interview 5 (00.25) Sam JonesIt just got built by skateboarders, over like the course of two years everyone keep chipping in so they had money for concrete it just got built.
Its been spare change from peoples pockets but I know a lot of people have put a lot of money into it, people have had jobs and have put most of the money they have into the park
They turned up at the last minute and then built maybe one or two ramps and then took all the glory
Theres loads of different places theres no specific places areas really the whole city has loads of different places.
Its not a proper ban its a billow so they can do what they want and make it up on the spot it depends how they're feeling
Interview 6 two skaters (00.46) Tom Teller ans LuisWe just built what we wanted to skate.
You feel a lot more proud of it if you have done it yourself,
after the council got involved they went they give us money to build it but then went to Tokworth and stuff and told them to skate it so its full of kids now so they have ruined it
It was just a waste of space wasn't it its had something done to it now
Thats sort of the nature of skating anyway, your using bits of land and places for enjoyment really
At the same time its an excuse, even though we built it they use it as an excuse to kick us off other places, its got a bit of stigma to it
The fact that they stepped in, they should have done more and got someone more professional to do it,
They could find more bits of land and do more projects just finding the land and then saying look here do something here and no one will hassle you and buy the land or insure it like they did.
Not community project but everyone is starting to build they're own ones like in sheffield, It all started at Burnside in america
Interview 7 First skater (01.04) Craig WilliamsMe and about four other people started building it we just kind of cleaned up the land an started building ramps really.
It was all our own money whatever we had a fiver or a tenner each to throw in to buy cement there was a lot of sand here from an art exhibition previously so we didn't have to buy that
The first session on the first ramp when we finished that was definitely the best everyone was here all the old guys all the kids
We used to skate here anyway and it was getting more and more neglected and over the far side there was about 3-5 tonnes of rubbish people had fly tipped, and we though why not clean it up and use it cuss we have no other places to skate.
The main problem was when the bank repossessed the land cuss we knew the guys that owned the land and cuss they have lots of businesses round here, it changed hands and the coop had it and they put fences up around it, they were basically scared of insurance of someone suing them if they hurt themselves, once we got that sorted it was pretty cool.
We were all surprised cuss no one know that it had changed hands that the land that no one wanted us to be here we all just turned up to skate and there was a 15foot gee wall here … We climbed over it. A couple of us spoke to the radio and that and then they got back in touch with us, and basically the Biennial in the end sorted it out with the bank and payed the insurance with the bank for the year we didn't ask them to
I think they kind of, when we started this we didn't want them to know about us being here so we didn't contact them, it got bait too obvious in the end and when it got closed off they started talking to us, we were worried we were going to get in trouble for using land that wasn't ours and cleaning it up and using it. but they were pretty happy with us doing it in the end and decided to help us and asked us what we need so we got some concrete from them.
Its starting to pop up everywhere loads of different countries loads of different cities theres loads of DIY parks popping up everywhere its really cool its dead good toes
You just have to be nice to people about things and explain why your doing it not just seem like your stealing their land cuss if get it all the wrong way with the land owner your never going to have fun with it
Next time we have some money together we will fix the floor and get silly things like bins, it would be nice to have it clean and safe to skate
Just more concrete and more hours with workmen to keep it clean and fix cracks the guys were really cool dead nice guys totally up for haloing us.
Its been Amazing all the local businesses have been dead cool we had nowhere to get water so the local bar let us go in and ruin there bathroom to go in covered in shit and get water. It was really good. People are really nice and ome in and stop and eat lunch here.
We had a few other places we had spotted that we had spotted we were going to do the same thing to. we would have down it again somewhere but it would have been heartbreaking to start from scratch
Its nicer when you have made it to skate it cuss you know its going to be sketchy and its going to hurt and its not perfect and you gotta be careful there, indoor parks are cool but its not outside in the street is it.
Everyone I know think its amazing but I can guess theres a lot of people who don't get it and don't know why we do it but they never will so we don't worry about it
Its free, its ours we don't have to worry about anything
We would have learned to pour concrete before we started it we made a lot of mistakes
It started with six of us or four of us built the first thing and then 6 and 8 and 10 and we ended up with a tin in the skate shop and anyone that went in on a summers day when building was going on get down there and help. We had 10year old kids with trowels helping and it was like just make that bit then its yours, the whole thing was built by everyone. The main group was like 10 of us
Street skating is different even if there was a street spot set up in here it wouldn't be 5 different spots in 5 different places, when we were kids that was amazing float round the city all day, but these places are cool, well its all we have now
We down we had no permission 3 of us came in in high vis jackets so we looked like council workers and started cleaning up the space in the daytime and came back at night and put done the first wooden transition and filled it with dirt and cam back 2nights later and with a generator and concreted it theres all kinds of shit in there dead seagulls and that. It was fuckin dreadful but we resurfaced it a few months later and fixed it
Interview 8 David Macky
The skate scene in Leverpool is really good due to the lack of facilities for so long its one of the main centres of street skating in the country so for that reason there are no parks or indoor facilities other than rampworks so he kids tend to be on the streets, its a strong street skating scene more so than anywhere else in the country other than london so yeah its good
It did originally have an impact 10 years ago, wardens would be trigger happy with their notepads and giving fines out i don't think anyone got fined it was a stop three times and as kids do they gave fake names and seemed to get away with it but all the main places we skated and met that ceased to exist for fear of getting fined. It was more of a move along from these places and they could quote this billow but they had nowhere to move us on to so the excuse was there is nowhere for us to skate or go they would say its not our problem you cant do it in the city. Or they would send us up to st annes police station in front of the station where there was a little quarter pipe that looked like skaters had built it but it was and old bt building where they used to roll the big copper wires. It was quite bait out of the city but that got closed down. We weren't allowed to skate there because of terrorism so they tore that down. We were left without a skate spot again
Apart from being a skater an using the spot we were able to bring attention to what we were doing have a collection pot and focus our efforts in outside interests via magazines and brand sponsors who put videos on at the CUC cinema across from the skate spot so we could use the skate spot as a spot where people could skate and watch the film collect money for the spot and use that money for concrete and physically build more stuff. The more interest that came fro outside the city to skate it it came from acorns really to become a full fledged skate park.
Its been a spot park for ages but it was just a wasteland I think maybe 3 years ago the first quarter park was built by frost and adam an icky maybe five of them and they just decided to build a quarter pipe there because of the lack of concrete parks in the area felt that they wanted to skate something like that and got to work and built it. It stayed like that for a long time and maybe couple of years ago we went right we need focus our attention on this and get some money somehow and put our money in and build a proper park.
It looks like the council have come in collected the props and left but hopefully thats not the case and they will come back in spring and say the floor needs doing how mug money do you need and put a fence up thats not as intimidating inside your quite boxed in. Before people could come down with their kids and watch the skaters now it feels like your enclosed and if your younger its quite intimidating. Hopefully they will put up a smaller fence or a chin fence so boards wont fly out but you can watch and basically make it more user friendly.
I think when people see it happening they want to join in. Skaters have a DIY mentality you want to build something to skate and that evident when we have been down building. We had kids down there when we were building we had a small amount of time where the council gave us people to help and every day there were 10-12 people there helping purely because they want to skate it when it was finished. It created a buzz and a vibe and not just in this city lost of others have thought we can do that. I think councils all over the country are thinking we can do that theres a big brand on tv advertising about reclaiming wasteland for skateparks, that spirals from NEw Bird, although it was like six of us in the start it involved lots of people and people that weren't skaters. so yeah it really snowballed.
I don't think anyone really knows the whole story the lats we heard was that the land was to be used for 5 years with a rolling insurance thing where people cant sue the council. Hopefully we will have it for a few more years, if nothing else comes from it but the council saying ok we will build something somewhere near if they're not skateparks then something else where people can congregate and sit.
I think they should listen to young people, if wardens are coming back every day and complaining they should be saying well this is a good thing if pope are skating a lot we need to provide for them. I think they did listen in the end at first they though what do we need that for and when they actually spoke to the guys and saw it was being used they saw it was good and its opened their mind so they don't just build football pitches and invest in smaller sports that they can put money in. Even just as little as the 10000 they used to finish new brd.
Anyone vie met down there we have had nothing but positive responses, i think at first they were confused, people were skating and building and this thing appeared from this waste ground, it was during the biennial when there were a lot of art exhibitions around and they loved it it was purely community driven people were building it and skating it and everyone came together i in the publics opinion has been fantastic.
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