Past the Point of no Return?

Kind of pissed I missed the show. He's not here every week. Crocodile tears aside, though, very touching that Immortal Tekkers, with only tenuous connection to the skateboarding scene, leant his support to the Save Southbank campaign.

This quote is brilliant in that it takes most people (me included) twenty minutes and lots of umms and errs to put across a relatively simple point:




The value of Southbank, though it is nearly as fun to skate as it was when i was 11 with my helmet, is no longer in it's physical nature. Banks, steps and ledges can be found, admittedly not always under cover, all over London. It's value is in what cannot be replaced: it's history, millions of anecdotes, magazine articles, countless photos and good times had by multiple generations of skateboarders. As Ben Bradshaw puts so eloquently above, if/when an alternative is 'given' to the skateboarders of London it will never have the same legacy. People value things more when they have to work for them. Southbank was never given to the skateboarders in the first place, it has over decades, become the home of british skateboarding by the constant presence. When a replacement is 'given' that sense of having home and having earned it is completely gone.

Cities' 'meet up' spots are an incredibly endangered species being slowly but surely hunted to extinction by councils completely unconcerned with a cultural or artistic history for their City. Surely this should be these councils number one concern but apparently, skate stoppers on everything up to shoulder high ledges is a better alternative... These cultural hotspots will be mourned just as much as the dodo in years to come when people realise that the cultural history of the spot will now exist only in print and in the minds of those who were there. There are very few surviving spots that can legitimately be called the home of skateboarding for that city and it will be a very sad day when Southbank is added to the list of broken homes. EMB, Love Park, Southbank. No thank you.

Join the facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/LongLiveSouthbank

Sign the petition here (what harm can it do?): http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/lambeth-council-southbank-centre-boris-johnson-arts-council-england-stop-the-relocation-of-the-southbank-skate-park