Art Exhibition to Raise Awareness and Funds for the Skate Park Project

The Civic Society supports the project by Friends of Marple Memorial Park to upgrade the skate park. The project is part of the Vision for Marple Regeneration project and we were happy to write a letter of support recently to help the Friends with their fundraising.

There will be an art exhibition at Marple Library from15th - 29th March to raise awareness and hopefully some funds for the project. There will be a launch event at the start of the exhibition on 15th March.

Sarah Morley, the artist, first became interested in local parks when the council was consulting on making cutbacks to the local parks last year.

Skate Park - Funding Application

The Marple Skate Park project was one of 15 projects across the borough to have applied to Stockport Council for inclusion in bids for funding from Sports England; however, unfortunately, we learnt this week that our project was not amongst the four selected by the Council.
                  Alternative funding options will now be explored.

Bids Submitted for Skate Park Improvements

Mark Whittaker (Friends of Marple Memorial Park), Lewis Abbot (local skateboard enthusiast, who was involved in development of existing skate park) and Graham Clarke (Marple Vision Partnership) met on Friday the 20^th January with Richard Booker (Parks Development Officer) and Tim Boylan (Landscape Officer) to discuss the bids that have been submitted to the Parks Dept for the proposed skate park development.

5 contractors were invited to bid and 3 submitted offers. The bids were based on a design brief prepared by Richard and Lewis on the basis of comments made by Marple Hall students, consultation with park users and Lewis's contacts with the local skating community.

Richard will now contact Kirsty Pierce (Marple Hall School) to arrange to speak to the students they met last time to show them the designs and get their views. A group of students considered the skate park project as part of the school's Enrichment Week last July and prepared a display that was on view at Marple Library for some time.

A copy of the design brief and the Skate Park Survey can be found at: http://www.marplememorialpark.org.uk/projects/skate-park-improvements.html and there is also a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/marpleskatepark. Details of the bids will be added to these sites so that further comments can be made.