January 25, 2011 7.17 am This story is over 158 months old

New skate park named after crash victim

Skate park: Long-awaited plans for a skate park in Lincoln in the memory of a crash victim have been approved.

City councillors on Monday agreed that a £200,000 skate park facility will be built in memory of skateboarder Karl Cody.

The park will be built next to Yarborough Leisure Centre (pictured), almost a decade after Cody was tragically killed in a moped crash on Burton Road in 2002.

The Executive Committee expect the park to open in around 18 months, with a youth panel suggesting ideas for the park and funds gathered before the design is approved.

This comes four years after planning permission was secured in February 2007 to build the park off Tritton Road, near the Superbowl, before the landowner withdrew at the last-minute.

The Committee did express a desire to have the project done on a cost and recover basis, keeping design as low maintenance as possible.

£185,000 has been ring-fenced by the council, from the sale of Sobraon parade ground, to underwrite the project.

An additional £10,000 external contribution, previously allocated towards skate provision, will be used along with a £5,000 contribution from the Karl Cody fund.

Lighting issues, the main financial consideration, will be controlled by Active Nation, with only a small fee charged to cover energy use and maintenance; a model currently in use in a similar facility at Ancholme Leisure Centre, Brigg.

Local skateboarder, Ben Sutton, 36, is pleased the park has finally gotten the go-ahead.

He said: “I’m so happy they’ve finally got round to doing it. I’ve been backing the idea for 15 years and it’s good to get over the obstacles that have come up in the past.”

The positioning of the site was highlighted as easily accessible to a wide community, close to the already existing leisure facilities and next to the late Karl Cody’s school.

Councillor Alister Williams was delighted with the result, as he has been backing this project for some time now.

Williams said: “I am massively excited about this having grown up on the Ermine and always wanting a skate park to be built”.

Naming the park after Cody was the only amendment to the proposed plans, after Councillor Hilton Spratt’s suggestion that “he was the driving force behind it”, with the family being consulted first.