Devizes BMX track to get off ground (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Devizes BMX track to get off ground

9:00am Friday 27th January 2012 in Devizes

A site for a BMX track for young people in Devizes has been secured but the wait for a skateboard park goes on.

The location for a BMX track was revealed at a Devizes Area Board meeting on Monday night.

Chairman Laura Mayes said a small patch of grassland near the allotments in Windsor Drive had been given to Wiltshire Council by a developer and this would be developed into a mud and earth BMX track.

Coun Mayes said: “We should have it done by the summer.

“We would like BMX users to design it for us.”

Council officials have been looking for a BMX site for more than three years after an unofficial track created by youngsters, behind Devizes Cemetery, was bulldozed by the landowners.

The hunt for a permanent skate park site is in its tenth year.

In 2002, Devizes Town Council was ordered to remove the skate park equipment at Hillworth Park when it lost a county court case over noise nuisance.

Coun Mayes said the board had identified potential sites for a skate park at Station Road car park and the town council’s Green Lane sports pitches. She said noise surveys would take place to see if the sites were suitable and, if so, a public consultation would follow.

A young skateboarder at the board meeting spoke of his frustration that no skate park site had been found.

Coun Mayes said: “It’s easier to place the BMX site because it’s less intrusive. We are doing everything we can to find a site for a skateboard park.”

Devizes community area manager Richard Rogers said it was not possible to create a skate park at the site for the BMX track because the ground slopes.