NEWS: Beaminster awarded £98,000 for Skate Park Project
The Town Council is delighted to announce that Beaminster has been awarded over £98,000 by the National Lottery Communities Fund, (NLCF), to enable us to deliver the Skate Park Project in 2021. It has taken a while but it will be worth the effort.
In 2012, members of the local community formed a group called ‘Beaminster Futures’ which conducted outreach and identified a lack of amenities for younger people in the town and surrounding villages. In response members of the Town Council and local towns’ people established the Beaminster Area Activity Development Group (BAAD), which worked alongside West Dorset District Council to conduct further research and consultation.
The main element of this research was a questionnaire which was made available online and sent to all households in the parish and also to local schools. The questionnaire was returned by over 750 members of the community and the consultation identified improvements to the Memorial Playing Field among which was better Play Area and a Skate Park for the town.
Since then BAAD, with the support of many others, have been pursuing the aim of creating an inspirational and inclusive area for play including a Skate Park in the heart of Beaminster. After considerable work and with the aid of a grant from the European Union the Town Council carried out a major renovation and upgrade of the Play Area which opened to the public almost 2 years ago.
Early last year we applied to the NLCF for financial assistance to help us complete the Skate Park project. Unfortunately, our bid fell foul of the COVID crisis and was ‘locked down’ while the NLCF turned their attention to more immediate matters. In November we submitted a revised bid to NLCF after they reopened for such applications and in December, just before Christmas, we were told our bid had been successful.
The Skate Park will add to and enhance the new and improved play area and provide more challenging activities. We know that the well-used play area provides for intergenerational interaction offering opportunities for communities to get together and engage with one another aiding community cohesion and helping to mitigate social isolation. The skate park will reach out to a wider age group and will improve the overall mental and physical health of its users through activity and social interaction.
The Town Council has received two amounts of funding from West Dorset District Council and now the generous NLCF award takes us to our funding target. This means that we can now commence the project and, COVID restrictions permitting, we hope to complete it by the summer of this year. We will be working closely with Maverick Industries on the build, and the Prout Bridge Project to develop the launch event.
