SIGN THIS PETITION FOR A NEW SKATEPARK IN MPARNTWE/ALICE SPRINGS.

The 'skatepark user group', parents, youth organisations and the children of Alice Springs are all crying out for a new skatepark. 

Alice Springs is long overdue a contemporary designed skatepark build. Our beloved current park is dated and gets overcrowded, with not enough obstacles or space designed for beginners. The park was built over twenty years ago and skatepark design has come along way in that time. The first council meeting with designs for a new build happened in 2003 and then were forgotten about. In 2014 another big push for a build, with a professional design concept was swept under the carpet.

In 2020 the skatepark users of Alice Springs submitted various design ideas for a new build and instead of any follow up, the council painted the current park with a dangerously slippery paint which is taking over a year to remove! It's one step forward and five steps backward with Alice Springs Town Council. 

Skateparks as free public youth spaces are known to be effective diversionary tactics to tackling youth deviancy and crime. Every other state in Australia is investing heavily in this model. Central Australia is lagging. There are barely any free effective public spaces for youth to congregate in this town, our skatepark is THE one.

2021 Olympic gold medals in skateboarding and Freestyle BMX were both won by young Australian Olympians. There is a lot of potential for the youth of Alice Springs/Central Australia to compete in future events, but without up-to-date facilities, that promise will fall by the wayside. 

Furthermore, regional skateparks encourage tourism and are great venues to hold national and international scale events. A new build would be an opportunity to host action sports events as exciting as Finke. This has been proven in other states around Australia.

Let's not waste another minute. The initiative and drive of the 'skate park user group' around the removal of the slippery paint job is proof of how passionate the youth, parents and residents of Mparntwe truely are. The new mayor Matt Paterson has used 'Skatepark' as a driving buzz word for his mayoral campaign, thus, we are eagerly awaiting the first motions of this progressive outlook. 

Please sign and share! The youth are restless.