things we love

While the verbs “gurning” and “blasting” a front blunt or nollie may mean nothing to most Inner Westies, the highly passionate skateboard community is awash with praise of Sydenham Green’s $2 million dollar skateboard facility. The facility incorporates a variety of skate types including transition, street skate and a bowl. While Mayor Darcy Byrne didn’t show us his moves on the half pipe, he did snip the ribbon to declare the park open.

“Too often, the voices of young people are ignored,” said Mayor Byrne.

“Here we have a project that they have helped design and which has now been delivered – a state-of-the-art facility that will be used by young people not just from across the inner west, but also the whole of Sydney,” he said.

The skate space also boasts many environmentally-and-community-minded features like ‘Green concrete’, lowering the amount of non-renewable energy intensive Portland cement by up to 65%, inclusive design – including ramps to all platforms, which was developed with Wheel Chair Motor-cross sports and around 20 trees to increase the urban tree canopy

Trent Evans from Sydney Skateboard Association said, “I can’t believe how exciting this is. Finally somewhere in semi-central Sydney is going to have an up-to-date skate park…the proper first skate park in the inner west. This is literally going to be a game changer for so many skateboarders in Sydney.”

As well, Council is developing an interpretive space on the site of the former church on Railway Road.