More annoying than dangerous
Inside Medway's skateboarding scene
Underneath the overflow car park of Medway Park in Gillingham sits a world-class skatepark. You couldn’t tell from the area now, but in 1978, at the height of skateboarding mania, one of the best skateboarding facilities was built at what was then the Black Lion in Gillingham. The park attracted skateboarders and BMXers from all over and was loved and well-used by the local community.
As is so often the case though, it wasn’t to last. The park was eventually filled in, with ‘health and safety concerns’ being cited at the time, but there are conflicting memories of this. One version claims a councillor who lived nearby at the time objected to the noise and young people hanging out, which sealed the fate of the park.
It is worth noting that The Rom, a skatepark in Romford in Essex built to a similar specification during the same year, was granted Grade II listed status in 2014 due to it being the most preserved purpose-built skatepark in England. But Medway’s version has been buried under a barely used car park.
Back in 2016, a petition to Medway Council to ‘dig up or repair’ the skatepark garnered nearly 1,000 signatures. It’s clear from the comments on it how much the facility meant to people, despite its heyday coming nearly three decades earlier:
“I had alot of time there having fun and keeping out of trouble”
“I spent my teenage years skating the park every day.”
“As a kid this was my second home and I didn't do drugs or drink because of Gillingham skate park”
“I grew up using this place and it kept me and all my friends off the streets and gave us hours of fun.”
“I'm 44 now but not a day goes by when I don't think of that place.”
But that was then. What is the state of skateboarding in Medway in 2023? Does much of one even exist in our towns? Are the council are help or a hindrance? What is the relationship between skateboarders and the residents around them?
As always, things are kind of complicated.
More than one skateboarder I spoke to for this piece highlighted the ghost of the Black Lion skatepark haunting the scene in the towns. It led to a defeatist attitude for a lot of skateboarders who witnessed its demise, and a perception of Medway Council repeatedly taking steps to stop skateboarders hasn’t helped.
In the years following, the flyover on Chatham High Street became the central meeting place for skateboarders in Medway to come together. The main reason for this was geographic. There were pockets of skateboarders across the five towns and Chatham was a logical central hub. The nature of the flyover helped too, offering a spacious dry area for skateboarders in a location that didn’t really bother any local residents.
It likely helped that the surrounding area was littered with skateboarding potential. Benches outside the Halifax, marble blocks, and a circular stone island affectionately known as “the biscuit” all provided opportunities for skateboarders to interact with the street environment in the absence of proper facilities.
Much like the flyover though, all of these elements were gradually stripped out of the architecture of Chatham, leaving the town as an increasingly hostile place for skateboarders.
The back and forth between skateboarders and a council that tries to stop them is one that the community is used to though. Local skateboarder Andy Roscow explained how it shapes the perception of skateboarders in the urban environment.
“Undoubtedly we saw the Medway towns totally different to most, and still do to this day. Once you start looking for spots you never really stop and you're constantly scanning your surroundings for potential. As sad as it is to see spots disappear, as so many have around Medway, it's exciting when we see new developments and building projects happening. Hoping that the developers accidentally create something skateable.”
Andy began skateboarding in Medway in 1999, and even at the age of 38, still partakes, even if he doesn’t skate as hard as he used to.
He recalls a period when Medway Council was engaged with the local community on how to develop the area between the Pentagon and the river in Chatham. The Paddock area next to the new bus station was regularly used by skateboarders, and Andy wanted to ensure that they had a voice in that process, trying to find a way for both skateboarders and pedestrians to co-exist in a safe way.
These efforts fell on deaf ears, with council officers seemingly uninterested in facilitating skateboarders within the redeveloped site. Indeed, Medway Council’s current website for the project proudly talks about the scheme’s anti-skate measures:
The scheme also accommodates anti-skate measures to ensure the safety of residents and visitors enjoying and using the space. We understand your concerns around anti-social behaviour in Chatham and have worked in partnership with Kent Police to ensure that, where possible, the scheme deters anti-social behaviour whilst enabling people to enjoy the space.
Tom Page, another local skateboarder, says he and other skateboarders regularly used the site and found more problems with drug dealers operating around them and groups shouting at them while they skated. He says he and his friends continued to use the spot despite these issues because it was ideal for skateboarding. “They don't understand the meaning a couple of bricks in a dodgy area has to such a small group of people”, he says.
Tom is young and has only been skating for a few years. Despite this, he’s developed a fascination with the activity. After breaking his leg last year, he decided to set up Chav Magazine to focus on the skateboarding scene in Kent as no one else was doing so. His aim was to capture the quirky and rough around the edges vibe of some of the smaller skateboarding magazines.
His YouTube channel certainly lives up to that. Tom cuts a slightly awkward figure on camera, and the production values are minimal, to say the least. But there’s a purity in what he’s doing. He’s laser-focused on local skating, whether it’s reviewing the questionable skateboarding facilities of the Hoo Peninsula, giving tours of potential impromptu skating spots on Rochester Riverside, or chatting to skaters at a pop-up shop in Chatham.
Tom’s reviews speak to a wider issue with skate provision in our towns. Outside of a couple of large parks that are quite well regarded (more on those later), most of the smaller sites, particularly those on the peninsula, appear to be built to a fairly low standard and poorly maintained.
Then there’s the issue of anti-skate architecture being installed across our town centres. This is where knobs or rails are installed across surfaces that would be otherwise suitable for skateboarding. This kind of thing has become increasingly common in towns across the UK, and a lot of it has been cropping up in Medway.
A local Instagram account called Archiskate documents anti-skate measures in Medway and beyond, with a significant number in Chatham.
If skateboarders are being driven out of our town centres and most skateparks don’t offer what skateboarders need, just where are they meant to go?
It is here that the potential conflict between skateboarders and those who don’t skate starts to form.
As more and more traditional skateboarding locations have anti-skate architecture installed, skateboarders begin to look for alternatives. In extreme cases, this can mean fighting back against the attempts to stop them, whether it’s removing knobs with saws or drills, or filling in cracks with cement. In most cases though, they’ll look for somewhere more suitable in the urban environment around them. This can be as simple as a few steps at the right angle, a railing, or a well-positioned bench.
A local Instagram account, the creatively named Medway Skate Spots, highlights potential locations that skateboarders can utilise. The account is littered with recognisable and more obscure spots across all five towns. “We see the potential in things that others don't look twice at”, says Andy Roscow.
The new development at Rochester Riverside has become something of a battleground between residents and skateboarders. Unlike many similar new developments, anti-skate architecture hasn’t been built into the site. Combined with its proximity to the town centre and an extensive but underutilised river walk, skateboarders have regularly taken to the area.
A Facebook group for residents of the development is full of posts complaining about the skateboarders. Some of the concerns seem legitimate. One highlighted skateboarders drinking and skating in the children’s play area. Others complain that skateboarding has damaged some of the steps on the river walk. Some seem rather more extreme though, blaming them for some graffiti because skateboarders were sitting nearby on a different occasion.
Tom Page has seen these posts, saying that the residents “seem terrified of us, scared that we'll try to beat them up if we skate outside their house.” While he can only speak for his own group of friends, he doesn’t see the issues between residents and skateboarders as being so serious: “If someone asks us to leave, we will with no hassle. The most likely thing that will happen is we'll just come back later. We're more annoying than we are dangerous.”
To most of us, whether skateboarders have somewhere to go is probably something of a niche issue. But skateboarding is becoming more mainstream, even making its Olympic debut in 2020, and wishing it away isn’t going to work.
Even with the limited facilities in our towns, skateboarders from the Medway scene are making an impact.
Danielle Gallacher, from Strood, set up Girl Skate UK, the largest community for women and non-binary skateboarders. She’s since gone on to run Skate Retreat, a welcoming safe space for those groups to take up the activity.
Mikey Patrick, a regular of the Medway skateboarding scene, has gone on to find sponsorship deals with brands like Levis. He was recently featured on the cover of a skate magazine in a shot taken under the M2 motorway bridge in Borstal.
To be clear, there are some skateboarding facilities in Medway that are well regarded. Several I spoke to for this piece were positive about Unit 1, a purpose-built indoor supervised skatepark near Rochester Airport. Since opening in 2008, the site has become a hub for skateboarders (as well as BMXers and inline skaters) to meet and practice in a safe environment. But while this is incredibly valuable, the cost of using it and its inaccessible location makes it difficult for many to enjoy.
Some of the Medway Council provided facilities are better than others. The skatepark at Cozenton Park in Rainham is well-liked and frequently used. Jacksons’ Field skatepark in Rochester, built following a campaign by Medway student Shelley Yates, isn’t without its flaws (the council jetwashed it to remove graffiti which caused the smooth surface to crack) but is still widely used by skateboarders of all generations. Everyone I spoke to for this piece was full of praise for Yates and her push to get the facility built even when more seasoned skaters in the area felt that the attempt was pointless.
The biggest missing piece of the puzzle to Andy Roscow is Medway’s lack of a skate shop. He says skate shops provide important meeting points and a hub for the local community, but while some have come and gone in Medway over the years, none of them have been able to make it stick.
When discussing what facilities skateboarders would like, Tom Page accepts no new skateparks are likely in the current environment, and skaters would rather find a new street spot anyway.
It seems for now that the Medway skateboarding scene will continue as it is: a disparate set of spots, and the constant push and pull between skateboarders and those who try to stop them. Whatever form that takes though, Andy is certain of one thing: “Skateboarding and skateboarders are here to stay in Medway.”
Footnotes
Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Giant Elk by Me Rex, Cheap Grills by Sincere Engineer, Searching For A Stream by Garden Centre, and Too Much To Ask by Cheekface.
Great article. Really enjoyed reading that. It seems there is a need to find new uses for the high streets that attract people to come and spend time and money, and there is also a need for a safe, free, street space for young (and perhaps not so young) skaters to come hang out and spend money in newly opened skate shops and cafes. There's lots of empty space on Chatham high street that could make safe, out of the way skate zones that would bring a new energy to the area.
Great article Ed, really interesting