City of Bunbury backflips on plans to remove old skate park after community outcry

The City of Bunbury has cancelled plans to remove its old skate park after a “public outcry” from the local community to keep the facility.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, the City announced via Facebook the old skate park located across from Centre Point Shopping Centre would be removed, with work to begin this week.

But a number of community members took to the comments section of the post to express their disappointment at the decision.

The post received almost 100 comments, with a majority of people questioning the decision or begging the City to keep the facility.

The City then updated the post six hours later, stating it would no longer be proceeding with the removal work planned for this week and would instead complete a new condition report with community feedback also being taken into consideration.

Bunbury Mayor Jaysen Miguel said the City had made the decision to remove the old facility based on a report from seven years ago which detailed the park would be in need of repair.

“When the design around the youth precinct and new skate park was going on, part of the decision-making process was that we had a report, from around seven years ago, saying the existing skate park was failing and was going to need some remedial works which were going to be quite expensive,” Mr Miguel said.

“The thought process was that when the new park came in we were going to be removing the old one.

“Clearly there has been some public outcry of people asking what is wrong with it, so we have listened and decided to review it, what the costs associated are and what kind of works need to be done.

“We want to know the life expectancy of it and make sure it is still safe, we don’t want to keep the facility if there is going to be issues with it.

“As a council and through the community, we will have to make that decision.”

The City said it would provide further updates and information as it came to hand.