Skateboarding in safety: Transgression Park opens in Craigmillar

By John Knox The name fascinated me: Transgression Park. It suddenly appeared on a large warehouse on the edge of Edinburgh’s Craigmillar estate. Was it a prison? Was it somewhere you went to commit a crime, or confess a crime, or buy a crime? It turns out to be a perfectly respectable, indeed admirable, place where young people can skateboard, rollerblade or ride their BMX bikes. And it opened for business this weekend. “Skateboarders and bikers are often looked upon as outlaws,” Doug McFadzean told me. “So we’re providing them with a safe place to come and practice their skills and meet their friends.” McFadzean and his co-director Ken Smith are two young entrepreneurs who are in the business of giving young people something positive to do. “People see kids flying about on their bikes or jumping pavements with their skateboards and they often regard them as a menace, or even menacing,” McFadzean said. “But actually, all they are doing is playing. And why shouldn’t they? So we want to give them a space of their own where they can keep this slightly edgy, street-cred feel but be safe, dry and warm at the same time.” They have invested “a six-figure sum” converting a large warehouse on an industrial estate into a state-of-the-art skate park with swoops and curves and bowls and railings, topped off with smooth birchwood. You can hire bikes or skateboards or rollerblades and helmets etc and, at £8 for a couple of hours, you can jump, swish, roll, tumble your way around this covered neighbourhood till you are exhausted. Then you can sit in the café and talk about it all to your friends. The place is open in the evenings and at weekends when teenagers seem to have all the time in the world to kill. During the day, Transgression Park offers biking tuition to younger children – from the age of five. Schools will use it for their activity sessions. Troubled youngsters will be offered sessions there as a reward for good behaviour. It is creating four permanent full-time jobs, plus freelance work for instructors, in an area desperately short of employment. “The city council has been very supportive,” McFadzean said. “But there is no direct public money involved. It’s entirely a private venture.” It is a shining example of how the private sector can bring a little life, and exercise, into the world of teenagers growing up on a housing estate. Craigmillar, and the neighbouring Prestonfield, Inch and Moredun and Gilmerton estates are among the poorest 5 per cent of neighbourhoods in Scotland. Levels of attainment in the schools, absenteeism and exclusions, are not good, and youth unemployment is a major problem. There are similar skate parks in Dundee, Aberdeen, Dumbarton and East Kilbride, and McFadzean and Smith have run one before, at Ocean Terminal in Edinburgh. “We’ve transferred to Craigmillar because it’s a bigger venue and it’s nearer our market,” they explained. Perhaps these commercial ventures are what is meant by “alternative business models” being explored by councils to cope with the government’s spending cuts but still keep services running. Perhaps it is even what is meant by David Cameron’s “Big Society”. My dictionary says “transgression” literally means “to step over”, and this is what we have in this warehouse at Craigmillar – a place where kids can step over their skateboards or bikes but also step over into a place of adventure and fun, risky living among their peers. And it’s a place where private business can cross the line into public service. I wish the transgressors all the best for their opening week.

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