Simon Kotowicz Yes My Lord Ltd |
So this is a good video. This is where we helped raise £1.2 MILLION for the expansion of Junction 4 Skatepark. |
Michelle Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
Junction 4 is in Blackburn / Darwen. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
The smallest skateapark in the UK, about 18 months ago. |
Michelle Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
It's just off Junction 4 on the M65. |
Jake Berry M.P. for Darwen |
Where people not like me, much younger, fitter, can come and do skateboarding, BMXing and scootering. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
We opened Junction 4 Skatepark CIC in 2017. |
Michelle Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
Well, Anthony had said, "I wish we could have the land at the back because we could do something with that, sort of open-air, so that when we go quieter in the sunshiny weather we'd have a place for people to come." |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
One thing we were unsure about was how to do was raise funding. So we took some advice from Ananda Meachin at Community & Business Partners. |
Amanda Meachin Community & Business Partners |
And I said I've got no idea what skateparks are, but I do now how to run a Not For Profit company and there were lots of infuential people in and round Blackburn with Darwen and a lot of what I did initially was to introduce them to those people. |
Marting Kelly Blackburn with Darwen Council |
I was curious about it, because I'd heard lots of things about the skatepark - some good and some indifferent. So I wanted to find out for myself what is was. At the same time we're thinking about a new plan for Darwen and we're looking for inovation, things with potential, things that are different to what we normally do. |
Michelle Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
So Martin came out and we were stood on the carpark and he was looking at the land behind us and he was saying, "and that bit actually belongs to the council." So Anthony was like, "Does it!?" His little eyes lit up, "Does it?! Is there a possibility that we could do something with it?" So Martin said, "Well, I'll go and find out." |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
We forwarded the designs for the whole site to Simon at Yes My Lord Ltd. |
Simon Kotowicz Yes My Lord Ltd |
So Anthony's brief was to revisualise his plans in 3D. This was to show the investors what a skatepark actually was, what a container park was, how the ramps would look, the dirt jumps and the pump tracks. |
Wayne Wild Darwen Town Deal |
Most people don't know what a skate park is, including me. So when you saw the graphics and you could follow it through and look at all the areas, it brough it to life really easily. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
You could see every element of the skatepark to get a feeling of how it would work, how it would walk round and how it would ride. |
Shaun Scarfe Four One Four Skateparks Ltd |
When Anthony first sent me the concept I was like, "Wow! Alright, I wasn't expecting it to look like this!" It was a lot more impressive than I thought. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
Other people we got involved and spoke to were Declan Brooks and Charlotte Worthington. When you go to major competitions there's very few parks in the country that have ramps that size so we needed to go in a different direction to make that work. |
Simon Kotowicz Yes My Lord Ltd |
So some of the 3D graphics were reworked to incorporate the feedback from the Olympic team. |
Shaun Scarfe Four One Four Skateparks Ltd |
Slowly that design evolved into pretty much what we've got now. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
And then Martin Kelly rang back and asked what we could do with £250,000 from the Darwen Town Deal. We already knew we needed match-funding to access British Cycling funding and all of a sudden we had it! |
Andy Farr British Cycling |
We're very lucky to be able to captial fund projects and to help bring them to reality. |
Simon Kotowicz Yes My Lord Ltd |
But British Cycling's funding came with some requirements of their own so once again we redesigned certain areas to accommodate them. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
We'd submitted the designs and we were talking to the Planning Permission department about what we were going to do. One of the concerns that was raised from it was, there may be a noise issue. So they'd suggested to make the containers two high, instead of one. To which we were like, "Okay then! Let's do this!" It made it better. We then had a viewing area, and an area for a bar and conferencing area. But it means parents can now sit and watch everything that's going on in the whole of the site. Everybody can see everything that happens. So. The funding was in place. The designs were in place. Planning Permission had been passed. All we had to do now was build it. The first spade went in, we had to strip all the land back, get rid of hundreds of lorry loads of dirt to get it down to the right sizes and form. |
Shaun Scarfe Four One Four Skateparks Ltd |
The excavation of the land, that you there was a good 1.5 - 2 meters higher than that. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
Once the levels were down we started building the concrete skatepark. We went for one of the best companies in Europe to build one of the best concrete street sections that we've got in the U.K. Containers! Wow! This was interesting. So when we started building each container was woth about £1,000 and due to "Covid", "Brexit" and a few other things they soon started to go up in price, very, very quickly. So, they went from £1,000, to £1,500, £2,000, and eventually we ended up paying £4,000 for some of our containers. And then we ran into another problem. Some of the land that we were going to put some of the dirt jumps onto wasn't available anymore and this would cause us a major problem as, if we couldn't supply the dirt jumps, we would lose some funding and that would make the project unviable. We had just over an acre of land right next to us, which was owned by another business. |
Simon Kotowicz Yes My Lord Ltd |
But the new piece of land was going to cost quite a lot more money. Junction 4 had already been given half a million pounds and Anthony now had to go back and ask for some more. So in order to persuade them we redsigned this whole area and really pushed the boundries of what was on offer. We then presented it inside Virtual Reality. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
Junction 4 Urban Sports Village 3.0 Which will include; A building for foam pits and "resi", so people can come and train. Another retail village area so, skate shops, bike shops and then we want to put a competition standard bowl with seating areas around it so we can have large-scale competitions. You know there's not many venues in the U.K., if any, that have seating to hold more than a few hundred people and we would like to have seating for one thousand people. |
Andy Farr British Cycling |
And I think that's one of the great things about Anthony's vision here he's constantly looking to improve. |
Shaun Scarfe Four One Four Skateparks Ltd |
If you check out the Virtual Reality you'll be able to see exactly what the next plans are. You get a real sense of depth when you look over the edge of the ramps and stuff. I can almost sit on this bench that's here! Hahahaha So that really helps to show the idea and sell the idea as well. |
Andy Farr British Cycling |
I thought the V.R. was brilliant, it's the first time I've ever had that opportunity. It brings the whole project to life and you sort of find yourself... almost moving as if you're on a bike or on a skateboard as you drop into the bowl. It's a completely different and far more immersive way of telling a story than simply a plan on a page. |
Wayne Wild Darwen Town Deal |
I literally went into the dome went up the sides. The scariness of getting to the edge, because you thought you were literally going to fall off. I could see the overall shape of the designs so you get a real feel for it. Better than any drawings. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
So, all of a sudden, we'd gone from £250,000, to £500,000, to £700,000, to £800,000 and all of a sudden we had £1.2 MILLION. One point two million pounds! |
Shaun Scarfe Four One Four Skateparks Ltd |
So there's obviously a huge amount of funding that Anthony's had to get to make this a reality. And having that moden concept of 3D and Virtual Reality has massively, massively helped with that side of the project. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
So Phase One consists of; A concrete skatepark, A wooden Olympic-standard skatepark, Pump tracks, Dirt Jumps, Viewing Area and a bar / conferencing room. |
Marting Kelly Blackburn with Darwen Council |
The immediacy of it! How close are you to the action?! How good's that?! Seeing world class performers ten feet away! |
Amanda Meachin Community & Business Partners |
Like Anthony said, "I want to create a village with a real urban feel to it." And he's done it! And I'm incredibly proud of them both. Really, really proud of them both. |
Wayne Wild Darwen Town Deal |
I've watched this from the very inception, when he first applied for the money and we've talked all of it through and I've been regularly on site to see the development. So, well done, all his team! Fantastic! And I'm sure it'll be a magnificent success. |
Anthony Ramsey Junction 4 Skatepark CIC |
We've taken something from nothing to creating a £1.2 MILLION BMX, skate, inline skate, scooter venue. The likes of which haven't been seen in the U.K. |
Shaun Scarfe Four One Four Skateparks Ltd |
If you're an elite athelte and got dreams of getting to the top of your sport this would be one of the places that you'd come and train. But it definitely, at the beginning, was a rather low-key affair that was more like a place to go for something to do than now it can become a place to go for something to acheive. |
Simon Kotowicz Yes My Lord Ltd |
So the Junction 4 Urban Sports Village was a complete success. If you think you could use some help from Yes My Lord Ltd, on an animation, 3D graphics, Virtual Reality, or even a video, then please get in touch. We'd be really happy to help. |