The Southbank Centre today unveiled its vision for an alternative skateboard site by the Thames — with experts claiming it could become a new world-class destination for skaters.
The space at Hungerford Bridge is bigger than the existing undercroft, which skateboarders have used for 40 years and want to preserve, but which Southbank wants to develop with shops and restaurants.
Experts who devised the new skate space after public consultation claim it is better, with more steps and ledges and walls for street art. It would have special features that do not exist in the undercroft for BMX riders and parkour. It would be designed for use by new as well as experienced skaters.
The Southbank Centre has given a legal undertaking to find £1 million towards building the alternative, which would remain for a minimum 125 years. Designer Søren Nordal Enevoldsen, a Danish skater, and Iain Borden, a British skater and consultant, said it was unfortunate that it had become financially necessary to relocate the space.
But Mr Borden said the proposal was “brilliant” and Southbank’s offer “unprecedented — nowhere else has an organisation done so much to accommodate and encourage skateboarding and urban arts on its site”. Mr Nordal Enevoldsen added: “I’ve spent a lot of time creating a public area that is gritty and urban in appearance and which incorporates many different features that happen to be great for skateboarding and other urban art forms.”
Rich Holland, another skater and adviser, said: “This has huge potential to become a destination attracting local users as well as national and international visitors and to become a world-class place for skateboarding.”
Southbank says putting shops and restaurants in the undercroft would help fund refurbishment and create a revenue to make up for a 15 per cent real-terms cut in subsidy. Opponents, who have secured a 65,000-signature petition, are angry the centre will not discuss preserving the existing site.
The Long Live Southbank campaign also argues there is no evidence that plans to develop the Festival Wing — the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery — requires the infilling of the undercroft.
