Montrose Skatepark

Your park, your say – community engagement leading the new skatepark design in Montrose

The final design for the Montrose community skatepark has been released following several rounds of key engagement with the community. The Montrose skatepark project is funded by Department of Communities Tasmania and Glenorchy City Council, with final designs now being made ‘construction ready’, works are proposed to begin during late 2022.

Engaging expert skill in designing the park was extremely important as the site at Montrose Bay involved a few major challenges with substantial underground services across the site to be considered. Council engaged CONVIC, a Victorian based design company with a large portfolio of skatepark designs in both Tasmania and across the nation. Recognised as one of the major youth facility design companies in Australia, CONVIC have designed over 750 facilities and were keen to engage with the local community to hear what was on their skatepark wish list.

The journey to a final design evolved through a two stage community consultation process where members of the public, the local skating community and key stakeholders were invited to participate in a broad number of activities to provide their ideas and comments on what the skatepark should include.

An initial community session was held in July 2021 at the Glenorchy Rowing club and, in spite of Victoria’s lockdown, the designers of CONVIC led a successful session with the community via video link. The participants shared ideas, drew diagrams and even molded playdough versions of their ideal skatepark. CONVIC shared their experience and insight to further immerse the community into the challenges of designing a skatepark.

What we heard was that the community wanted an open feature design to allow space to build up speed and elements such as a ‘slappy kerb’ and ‘quarter pipe’ were high on the wish list.

In mid-September, the community were invited to return for a follow up session to provide key feedback on the draft designs. This provided a critical opportunity to get a first glance at the potential concept of the skatepark and whether it hit the mark.

Although Council received general positive feedback on the draft design, it was encouraging to see many more suggestions and comments, building on the first engagement, to really tailor the site to fit the purpose for those who would be using it. One popular request was to separate the skate bowl from the main park section to allow less experienced skaters a degree of space from those with more skill. The bowl also features a shallow end for users to build up their confidence and practice. You can view the key changes made from the draft to the final design here.

Armed with these comments, CONVIC has presented a final design incorporating the changes which are now open to view. Currently, CONVIC are preparing the detailed version of the design ready for planning consent and construction. The next stage is to complete the tender process for construction which is aimed to be finalised during Spring 2022.