Proposal launched for world’s first Olympic level skateboarding centre in Bradford | News

Ian Chalk Architects and Twentieth Century Society (C20) have proposed the world’s first everlasting indoor and outside Olympic stage skate facility in Bradford. 

The Dunn would repurpose the at present deserted Nineteen Seventies grade II-listed Richard Dunn Sports activities centre, named after the Bradford-born boxer who fought Muhammad Ali for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1976. 

The skate and outside sports activities centre would mix avenue and park model programs, offering completely different terrains and obstacles in addition to spectator and competitor services. 

A 555sq m park model concrete bowl that follows the contours of the unique leisure pool and a 1475sq m avenue model enviornment that transitions from the indoor sports activities corridor space to a brand new outside course are included within the plans. 

Different areas could be remodelled with climbing partitions, a restaurant and studio suites. 

Impressed by Kenzo Tange’s 1964 Tokyo Olympics gymnasium, the ‘big-top’ roofed constructing was one of many earliest UK tasks to make use of Pc Aided Design (CAD). 

Confronted with rising upkeep and power prices, the sports activities centre completely closed in 2019 however was earmarked for redevelopment by homeowners Bradford Metropolis Council. The location was positioned on stand-by in 2020 as a brief mortuary facility in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

When confronted with imminent demolition, C20 submitted a list utility for the constructing in late 2021, and in April 2022 it turned one of many first leisure centres of its kind to be nationally listed. 

Native newspaper the Telegraph & Argus ran a ballot on how the constructing must be redeveloped following information of its grade II itemizing. Of the practically 3000 responses, the preferred was to show the derelict sports activities centre right into a skatepark. 

Skateboard GB – the nationwide governing physique for skateboarding – confirmed that town lacks appropriate services. Bradford is England’s seventh largest native authority, but there are solely three skateparks throughout the wider facility, all of that are open air and could be categorized as micro sized (lower than 150sq m). 

Bradford is Britain’s youngest metropolis, with 29% of the inhabitants being beneath 20 and can turn into UK Metropolis of Culure in 2025. 

Since closing its doorways, the sports activities centre has been the goal of vandalism and arson assaults and was even used as a dystopian filming location for Danny Boyle’s upcoming zombie apocalypse characteristic 28 Years Later. 

Richard Dunn Sports activities Centre is certainly one of 4 websites listed because of C20 Society’s ongoing Leisure Centres Marketing campaign, launched in 2022. A report commissioned by Swim England in September 2021 estimated that 40% of the nation’s public swimming pools may very well be pressured to shut by 2030 as a consequence of restricted native authority budgets, international chlorine shortages and hovering power prices.