27 August 2026 · Skateboarding
This weekend is busy.
Southbank has its Summer Jam.
Leeds has the LS-TEN + Welcome Jam and BBQ.
Derby has C.R.E.A.M.
Then Sunday brings more sessions in Caldicot and Croxley, while Pioneer Skatepark in St Albans celebrates forty years of skating. Skateboard GB
That’s a lot happening in two days.
But the interesting bit isn't the calendar.
It’s what happens when the calendar is empty again.
Because skateboarding has always been good at turning ordinary places into scenes.
You find some concrete.
A few people start skating it.
Someone brings another mate.
Someone younger turns up and starts learning.
Eventually there are people who have been skating the same place for years.
That's when a skatepark stops being just a skatepark.
It gets history.
Pioneer is probably the clearest example this weekend.
It opened in 1986 and celebrates its 40th anniversary on Sunday. The day starts with a kids' skate jam before moving into an adult session and live music later on. Skateboard GB
Forty years is serious.
Think about how many generations of skaters can pass through one place in that time.
First drop-ins.
First kickflips.
Arguments.
Slams.
People disappearing for five years and randomly turning up again.
Kids eventually bringing their own kids.
You can't manufacture that.
And it isn't only old parks that matter.
A new £100,000 concrete skatepark opened in Rhosddu, Wrexham today, replacing the ageing steel equipment that was there before. Importantly, local young people were consulted during the project so the people actually using the park had a say in what was built. news.wrexham.gov.uk
At the same time, a planning application has just gone in for a proposed £1.3 million skatepark in Cliftonville, a project originally proposed by people from the local skate community. The Isle of Thanet News
Different towns.
Different parks.
Same principle.
Give people somewhere worth skating and they'll do the rest.
They'll give the place its stories.
They'll give it its tricks.
They'll give it its characters.
And eventually somebody will look at a battered ledge and remember something that happened there twenty years earlier.
That's the part of skateboarding you can't measure with medals, followers or views.
So go to the jams.
Support the people organising them.
Skate the new parks.
Fight for the ones your town still needs.
But when the event finishes and everybody packs up, keep turning up.
Because concrete gives you a skatepark.
People give you a scene.
ART FIRST. STREETS ALWAYS.
