It was absolutely fantastic to read in Saturday's Rotorua Daily Post that the Rotorua Lakes Council has listened to Rotorua residents through submissions on the Long Term Plan and has started work on upgrading the very dated Rotorua skatepark.
In the same way as the Westbrook netball courts have had a $1.5 million upgrade to a specialist surface, the proposed skatepark upgrade allows for specialised surfaces which will help skatepark users to push their skills further.
However, I was quite taken aback by a letter from Tracey McLeod (May 8), in which she made many crass and completely wrong assumptions about skatepark users and an insinuation that the skatepark is badly-run. She also suggested that the skatepark should be made more "family-friendly" by adding a playground.
As a skatepark user myself, I can attest to the fact that skateparks already match her playground suggestion perfectly, only instead of climbing jungle gyms and sliding down slides, the skatepark allows people to soar out of quarter pipes and slide down rails, amongst other creative ways of using the facilities on offer.
The many parents who take their young children to the skatepark would also attest to the family friendly environment that already exists. Tracey McLeod would also be interested to learn that much like etiquette on a golf course, skatepark users also have similar unwritten rules which means the skatepark already runs smoothly.
