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The Factory - A Brief
History
Dundee is a city which, like many
in Scotland, has a rich history and heritage. It was once a
thriving centre for trade with ships carrying off produce to
the far corners of the world. As well as this aspect of
heritage there is also a strong heritage of awesome
skateboarding facilities stretching back over 2 decades. Many
of you will have skated The Factory Skatepark, however, you
may not know about the history of ‘The Factory’, why it’s
called that. So this is an opportunity for a little history
lesson to shed a little light on the matter (especially if
you’re part of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater generation!).
Before the Factory ever was
Dundee’s skating scene goes back
to a small halfpipe in Broughty Ferry built around 1984/85 by
BMXers Nick Johnston, Scott Carrol and others. A mini ramp was
built as Nick and others started skateboarding.
Erskine Street
Around 1987/88 another group of
skaters started skating in an old factory warehouse on Erskine
Street in Dundee, a small mini ramp was built and then both
groups of skaters got together and built the first 16ft mini
ramp, this was added to with another 12ft wide Extension and
then a spine ramp and rollover added after that. And so the
first ‘Factory’ came into being.
Over the course of three or four
years this Factory was the host for two amazing competitions
which brought skaters from as far afield as London to come to
them. Skaters like Lee Ralph, Bod Boyle, The Deathbox (now
Flip skateboards) team like Paul ‘Rocker’ Robson, Wurzel and a
very young Andy Scott were frequent visitors. Good going for a
skatepark built in an old disused building and no official
permission to be there!
This facility continued for about
three years or so until it was announced that the building was
to be demolished. Given the incredible timescale of just a few
days to try and relocate the ramps before being locked out of
the building it was looking bleak, then the final nail in this
first Factory’s coffin in the form of an arsonist with a huge
quantity of petrol. So the first Factory was reduced pretty
much to ashes and bulldozed along with the building itself not
long after.
So began a period without any kind
of ramps to skate in the area, skaters got their fix
travelling to the Cosmos Centre in St Andrews to skate the
indoor mini every Tuesday and Friday night.
Nethergate
After a gap of more than a year
people began to skate in an old three storey building in
Dundee’s Perth Road / Nethergate area. The top floor was
messy, having been empty for years it was full of crumbling
chipboard shelves mixed with a thick layer of pigeon poop.
Undeterred by this a group of skaters, headed up by Colin
Paton, tore into it, cleared it up and swept the entire area
rendering it skateable. This building was amazing, three
floors with probably over 50,000 square feet of skateable
surface.
The top floor was eventually
filled with a couple of hips, funbox / rollover, gigantic wall
ride and various grindrails and jump ramps. The middle floor
had a low ceiling but still had room for small grind rails and
jump boxes. The bottom floor was quite dark with few windows
but towards one end there was a huge set of doors, in this
location was built a 16ft wide 6ft high mini which had 8ft of
it’s width as a spine that went through a gap in the wall
through to the darker area of the floor
So the Factory was reborn due to
the hard work of a few people, what topped it off was that the
owner of the building, a local judge, came down one day as he
had heard people had been in skating the building and wanted
to take a look and tell people not to skate there anymore. But
once he saw how the building had been cleaned up and was far
from being wrecked by the skaters he was happy to let us skate
there.
This Factory lasted for three years or so until the building
was sold to be developed into what is now Dundee Contemporary
Arts. Despite all efforts no home could be found for the
ramps, and these were sadly chopped up and destroyed. Once
again the ramps were all lost, it was kind of hard to take a
second time around knowing all the hard work and effort that
many people had put into building it all.
And so began another period with
no Factory to skate...
Blinshall Street
Around 1996/97 a local church in
Dundee called The Gate became increasingly interested in
trying to help setup a facility for skateboarding in the city,
it was seen as a unique opportunity to develop sport and
community needs together under one roof. After looking at
several possible buildings one was found in Blinshall Street
in Dundee and was subsequently leased. With a £43,000
investment from The Gate the park was built, in May 1998 the
park was officially opened.
It was obvious from the start that
this 5,500 square foot facility wasn’t nearly big enough, so
it wasn’t long before the possibility of getting funding to
move to a much bigger venue was explored. It was originally
envisaged that the park would move to a new building within 18
months, however, it has taken a lot of hard work and
perseverance but finally a new bigger Factory Skatepark has
become a reality.
And now...
The new Factory skatepark is
housed in a brand new purpose-built building housing
approximately 16,500 square feet of skating area. The building
is located at 15 Balunie Drive in the Douglas area of Dundee
across the road from ODEON Cinema.
The facility houses not only the
skatepark but also has a skate shop, a restaurant,
IT Suite/Internet café which will
be used as a gaming suite and IT training courses.
There is also one Video editing setup too along with a camera
to encourage the creation of skate videos. There are various
offices used by an MSP, NHS and some small community/youthwork
organisations, and there is also showers! So you can go home
smelling nice and fresh.
It’s exciting to finally see the
park open, it may have appeared as if nothing was ever going
to happen but it’s taken a lot of hard work and perseverance,
applying for grants, fundraising, meetings with the council,
community groups, landowners etc.
It’s also taken a lot of money, applications for planning
permission (on two other previous sites that fell through in
the end), architects fees and so on. But with the help from
various trust and funders it’s become a reality.
As of 8th April 2004 The Gate who
originally setup the skatepark passed on ownership to a new
charity which was set up to oversee the project namely "The
Factory Skatepark" which is a company limited by guarantee.
Everyone at The Factory is also grateful to all the people who
skated and supported the park and made it a success, it’s
exciting to now be in this new facility and seeing lot’s of
people enjoying the park! |
