Parkland Walk landgrab (?) at adventure playground

rikki

Some unfriendly fencing has gone up all around the adventure playground area of Parkland Walk on Crouch Hill (is this within the geographical scope of this forum?).

I wonder if anyone knows anything about this and whether it can or should be challenged in some way?

I find it distrubing to see parts of Parkland Walk effectively being privatised like this and want to make sure it's not the start of a slippery slope!

HolbornFox

I thought the climbing rope thing was broken and presumed that was why?

joust

anyone know if that is in the islington or haringey part of the walk

Arkady

Definitely Islington.

rikki

Yep it's Islington for sure - and there's nothing temporary-looking about this fence - it's tall and mean!

Arkady

How confident are you that the playground is part of the Parkland Walk's metropolitan Open Land, and not part of the school site? I've half a memory of seeing it it included in the latter when the plans came forward for the new school building and related landscape work.

Miss Annie may still be seething about the loss of the old totem poles there.

rikki

I'm not at all confident, which is why I posted my question. I do have an all too vague memory that there was some agreement when the playground was built, that the public would have access, and I wonder if anyone has any better memory of that?

It might be legal, and that bit of the walk may not be public, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is questionable.

All I do know is that I'm feeling alarmed at seeing fences suddenly go up for the first time in decades on what has appeared to be freely accessible and beautiful land.

Scruffy

I saw the fence this afternoon. Could it be there just to stop the playground being used without supervision? You know; health and safety, liability, etc?

miss annie

@Arkady I am. I'm always seething about something.

HolbornFox

Feminiseething?

tosscat

@HolbornFox why do you assume mxannie is female?

Papa

If they have fenced that off it's a real shame, the kids love playing on that and there is nothing dangerous about playing there unsupervised.

Children play there all the time.

My understanding was it was a playground open to the public at all times.

What is dangerous is the skateboard ramp that is the worst built I have ever seen (and the wrong dimensions - too tall / too narrow).

Islington council got mugged off by the shonky contractor (a playground maker not skate ramp maker) who flogged it to them, despite extended discussions with skaters (including me) who pointed this out both before and after the build and Islington never got the cowboys back to fix it.

HolbornFox

@tosscat I don't, I have no idea if MxyAnnie is male or female.

mattleys

I think the playground was fenced off because the Cape playscheme has legal responsibility for the kids using it but without a perimiter it was impossible to make that work in practice. So now it's open whenever the Cape is open and the supervisors are there, which sort of makes sense.

The skate ramp suddenly disappeared a couple of days ago - no idea if it's going to be replaced. It was lousy, too big, and attracted lots of complaints about noise from the flats across the Parkland Walk because it was made of metal (not fibreglass like the previous one) and sounded like the crack of doom opening when kids played on it.

Papa

That's Islington's only skateboard ramp and one of only two skate facilities in the entire borough. They were meant to get a proper skatelite replacement for the old ramp, then decided to cut corners and got the cowboys in.

There has been a ramp there in a couple of different forms for maybe 30 years - it was quite a famous spot at one point - probably predates a fair few of any residents complaining.

This is from R.A.D magazine in 1989 on a skate comp held at the Parkland Walk on the then much bigger vert ramp, it was to support the walk as there was a threat to build a road down it.

http://www.whenwewasrad.co.uk/wp-content/images/81/rad81_50.jpg
http://www.whenwewasrad.co.uk/wp-content/images/81/rad81_51.jpg

Article here
http://www.whenwewasrad.co.uk/index.php/2006/05/08/crouch-end-skateboard-competition/#more-172
http://www.whenwewasrad.co.uk/index.php/2006/05/09/parkland-walk-skateboard-competition-part-3/

I hope the council plan to replace the ramp, I am going to start badgering them about it again. This is a piece of London skate history and a facility for sport at teenagers that people should fight for.

Also, my kids are going to be hugely disappointed about the playground being fenced off. It's a great spot for them to play and is no more dangerous (probably less) than any of the open all the time playgrounds in our parks.

My understanding was that Cape is part of Islington anyway, so I don't see the issue.

joust

Is it the sort of fence that could be mended with a pair of good pliers?

miss annie

I lived alongside the Parkland Walk in the late 90s and the ramp was in full swing then. No one ever complained about it as far as I know.

rikki

@Joust - unfortunately not - you'd need something more like an angle grinder to make any improvements to this one!

Ali

I hear we are getting changes to the FP playspace in that pit place and old reb ramp thing next to it. Might be gone parkour or some thing

lawrence singha

to make it safer, reduce crime in area and if you attend the meetings you would know too.

joust

Make it 100% safe by fencing it off so no one uses it?

N19lurker

I made an enquiry about the fencing and was also told it was for health/safety reasons linked with the operation of the Cape (run by Awesome CIC who are a separate entity to council now). The colour of the fencing blends in OK but got to admit it does seem a bit excessive how far it encroaches.

However, whilst I was concerned when I first saw it that it would result in the play area being locked and out of bounds when the Cape is closed, so far (early days) this appears not be the case. Went up last Sunday with the little one - the new gates at the top were left wide open and there were other kids playing there too.

Will be monitoring this closely though and will be sure to complain if they are locking it up - so far so good though. Hopefully they can get round to repairing the zip-wire which appears to have been out of action for years now.

No idea what's happening to where the skateboard ramp was.

Papa

Lawrence, I didn't even know there were meetings. Care to elaborate?

I'm a local Islington resident who heads up there regularly, whose kids play on it, albeit not at Cape, got involved when the skate ramp was so terribly replaced, and I wasn't aware of anything.

I'd be interested to know.

Peter Crumb

I must say I've lived in the area for around ten years and jog on the parkland walk most days; I've never once seen anyone actually skating on the skate ramp, unlike the one in Finsbury Park.

lawrence singha

Community split 50-50 after 'iconic' Parkland Walk skate ramp removed by Islington Council

https://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/heritage/iconic-parkland-walk-skate-ramp-removed-by-islington-council-1-6002073

Papa

There are a lot of inaccuracies in that skateboard ramp story, which seems to have been cribbed badly from here.

The first is the intro:

The community is "split 50-50" after an "iconic" skateboard ramp was ripped out of the abandoned railway track linking Finsbury Park and Highgate by Islington Council earlier this month.

The'iconic' skateboard ramp wasn't ripped out. The crap one that the council got mis-sold in 2014 by some playground-manufacturer shysters and never got them to fix was removed.

That unfortunately replaced the previous one, which got burnt out by a scumbags with a motor scooter, and did get skated.

It was that one removed in 2013 that replaced the 'iconic' vert ramp.

@Peter Crumb The reason nobody skated this most recent one was because the council got flogged an unskateable ramp. The panels weren't flush, the coping (pipe that runs along the top) had gaps in it rather than being one continuous run, it was too high and too narrow and a crappy metal material.

What makes the whole thing so shambolic, is that I remember months of correspondence with Islington Council trying to help them get a decent ramp put in - and it seemed they were actually going to get a properly-made one from a skate ramp maker.

Then all of a sudden there was a reversal and this piece of rubbish arrived (probably costing a small fortune).

I just looked through my emails and see I described it to the council chap at the time as 'the worst put together skateboard ramp I have seen' and said they should not pay for it, or demand their money back.

I pointed them in the direction of the then Three Amigos skate shop owner instrumental in getting the Clissold Park bowls built, if they needed a professional opinion.

The council said they were in a snagging period with the contractor and that was the last I heard. It never got fixed.

Anyway, in other Parkland Walk related news.

This is from the Islington Gazette: Scandal' of the unfinished £3m Northern line extension from Finsbury Park

https://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/heritage/scandal-of-the-unfinished-3m-northern-line-extension-from-finsbury-park-1-4896143

Scruffy

How is this news, @Papa ? Seems like old history about which there’s nothing to be done. Did I miss something?

Papa

What you mean due to this sentence: 'Anyway, in other Parkland Walk related news.'

It's because it's from a newspaper.

I believe he also did a talk last week and is doing a walk, those may be news.

I'd agree, the decision not to extend the Northern Line along the Parkland Walk may no longer count as news.

Papa

And the other stuff, I just read that Gazette skateboard ramp article and for the benefit of nobody in the world who is interested though I'd set out what actually happened to the ramp.

You never know, some local journalist might copy it from here accurately in the future.