Skate award

By Bridget Cook
CRANBOURNE East is now home to an award-winning skate park after The Shed took out a regional award.
The biggest indoor skate park in the southern hemisphere has claimed the Victoria and Tasmania Regional Award of Excellence for Leisure Facility Development from Parks and Leisure Australia.
The City of Casey recently invested about $1.2 million in the redevelopment of The Shed, which was a major priority of the council’s skate strategy in 2007. Many professional skaters were on board as part of the redevelopment to provide advice and assist with ramp design.
City of Casey Mayor Shar Balmes said that the award was a great achievement and recognised the effort the council had made to cater for its large, and growing, youth population.
“Casey was the first Victorian council to develop a specific skate strategy, and this award confirms we made the right decision, and rewards the City of Casey for its visionary approach,” she said.
The Shed is said to have the ultimate ramp offering in Australia, which took six skater tradesmen 16 weeks to build. During the concept stage, designs were placed on various industry blog sites to elicit feedback from across the globe to ensure the facility’s broad appeal.
The completed development includes a vert ramp, bowl and a huge street course offering both BMX and skate features.
There is also a foam pit and a resi ramp with more forgiving surfaces for beginners and those trialling new manoeuvres and tricks, before trying the other surfaces.
City of Casey manager sport and leisure Richard Amon said in developing The Shed, the council’s goal was to build a facility for action sports that offered an exciting, safe and affordable venue for all ability levels of participants.
“The City of Casey has a very large youth population – about 70,000 five to 24 year olds call Casey home. With a minimum of 5500 skaters in the municipality, all these skaters need places to skate,” he said.
“Since re-opening in November 2010, The Shed already has more than 12,700 members.”
The Shed redevelopment project is now in the running for the national award, which will be announced in September.
For more information about The Shed, including session times, visit www.theshedskatepark. com.au or call 5996 8898.