Southbank Centre and the skateboarders – what’s going on? Q. What is this controversy about? A. Southbank Centre has put forward plans to refurbish a large part of its site, which it calls the Festival Wing. This complex of three famous artistic venues has hardly been touched since it was built in the late 1960s. It badly needs a comprehensive overhaul to bring it back to world class standard and create dedicated learning spaces each year for over 150,000 young people and 100,000 other people of all ages and backgrounds to observe, discover and participate in art and culture in a way they would never otherwise be able to do. Q. Why does that create a problem for the skateboard community? A. For the last 40 years, skateboarders have used part of the ground floor in the Festival Wing to skate in and see it as their spiritual home. We’ve asked them if they would move to an old skate space of the same size that they call Mellow Banks or Bird Shit Banks. It is also on the riverside just 120m away from the current space. The skateboarders are unhappy about this and we sympathise. Q. If you are offering another space, why are they angry? A. The skateboarders say that the space they use now is the most important skate space in the UK and no other space can substitute for it. Q. Why does Southbank Centre want their space? A. Because without it, we simply can’t go ahead with the Festival Wing. We need to use the existing skate space to raise a crucial financial contribution towards the £120m cost of refurbishment. As prime commercial space on the riverside, this will be security on the bank loan for refurbishment costs and create a significant annual income towards the running costs of the Festival Wing. Q. How many skateboarders will this affect? A. They have told us that up to 300 skaters use the space each week, coming back repeatedly through the year. We very much want to continue to support those skaters. Q. Isn’t the skateboard space public property? A. No. We are a charity and this is the ground floor of a building that we own and need to refurbish. While the public have access, no single group or individual has rights to the area. It’s like Royal Festival Hall: everyone can go there but you can’t claim bits of it as yours. Q. Why do you need more cafés and restaurants: why not put something artistic there? A. More than 75% of the Festival Wing project is for artistic projects which have a big emphasis on young people. As a charity, we need to raise as much money as possible from cafés and restaurants to enable us to provide more great art for everyone. Queen’s Walk is one of the busiest areas in London and is therefore the most commercially valuable space within the area. We would not be able to raise the sums required for Festival Wing by putting the restaurants elsewhere on site. Q. We don’t need yet another Starbucks: London has enough generic chain restaurants and cafés. A. We don’t want a Starbucks either. People might remember that Starbucks once had a café beside Hayward Gallery, which we stopped because we wanted to bring in a more interesting restaurant. The sorts of place we like include Wahaca, Dishoom and Pitt Cue Co, who have all had pop-ups on our site. Exciting food, relatively new businesses, who can add a different dimension to the site and want to work with our audiences and communities as part of our festivals. Q. Southbank Centre sounds like a commercial enterprise: why are the developers even considering this? Isn’t this about the rich getting richer? A. No commercial developers are involved in this project: it’s just us. This is our project and we are an arts organisation and a not-for-profit charity. We need to refurbish these buildings in order to provide more art for more people in better spaces. Q. There must be other ways to raise the money than through restaurants? A. This project to refurbish the buildings and create new arts and cultural spaces will cost £120 million, which is a huge sum for an arts organisation to raise, especially now that government funding has been cut. The money that Southbank Centre generates from the loan secured against the cafes and restaurants and the rental income will help us to fund the refurbishment and contribute to running costs. Q. Why not make the refurbishment cheaper and keep the skaters where they are? A. Even the very basic refurbishment of the site without any new buildings would cost £80m. To raise that money, we would still need to use the current skate space for commercial activity. Also, there’s no point in refurbishing the complex if we have no money to maintain it in future. That’s why the Arts Council England made it a condition of their promised grant of £20m that our plans generate income towards the future upkeep of the Festival Wing after the refurbishment is complete. Q. Are the skateboarders being asked to leave Southbank Centre? A. Absolutely not. We want them to stay and wish to support them growing in numbers and visibility. We are asking them to move a short distance along the riverside within our 21 acre site to a space that they have previously used for skating, but which has been closed since 2004. We have asked if we can work with them by funding all necessary work to make it a space they can love and flourish in. Q. Is the other space really suitable for them? A. Yes. The space under Hungerford Bridge was previously used for skating. It has been closed since 2004 and will need renovating under the direction of the skateboarders to make it usable. It is in a prominent place just 120m from the existing space. It’s a similar size and visible to spectators. Q. But the new space seems to be quite tucked away from public view behind a ramp. Surely that’s worse? A. We will modify or remove the ramp as part of these plans, which will mean that the new space under Hungerford Bridge will be just as visible from Queen’s Walk which has the same footfall as the current skate space, about 7 million a year. The walkway overlooking it has a footfall of 2 million so the final viewing capacity may in fact be larger. Q. Will the new space be commodified as a ‘Southbank Centre’ creation, or be co-managed by those who use it, as now? A. We are committing this space for skateboarders, BMXers and graffiti writers. They will advise us on the best way to operate it: currently we provide cleaning, security and lighting. Some skateboarders have suggested they would like us to work with them on planning events, which we would be excited to do if they want. Q. If the new space is so great, why not put the cafés and restaurants there? A. We’ve really looked into this. But because it is so expensive to build an entirely new building, this would not help towards the refurbishment costs of the Festival Wing, nor towards its running costs. The current skate space just needs enclosing and it is ready. Q. Moving the skate space suggests it is not seen as important as the other cultural facilities at Southbank Centre. That sounds elitist and not in the interests of local people. A. If we’d asked them to leave, that would be elitist. We want to ensure they can stay. As far as we know, no other organisation in the world has ever offered a home for skateboarding, graffiti writing and BMXing in the way we are doing now. We value their culture and vibrancy on our site as well as their history. That’s why we have welcomed them here for so long and supported them with lighting, security and first aid, in the same way that we support other artists, including musicians, writers and dancers. This is not the usual reaction of most organisations, as skateboarders themselves have said: usually, they are just moved on. Q. Don’t the skateboarders contribute to Southbank Centre? A. Yes, very much so. They add vitality, spectacle and an extra cultural dimension to our waterfront. They also inspire young people to take up skateboarding and mentor them. Q. Were the users of the undercroft consulted? A. Not early enough. We’ve listened to the skateboarders and we recognise that we got this wrong. Although we told them of our plans at the same time as other groups who use the site, we should have realised that the skate space demanded a lot more time if we were to demonstrate respect and maintain trust with the skateboarders. We didn’t tell them our intentions early enough and we apologise for this. Since early March, we’ve held many talks with them, offered to cooperate on the design of the new space – and even hosted their protest demonstrations, free of charge and with full security. Q. What is the timeline for the proposed collaborative development of the new space? A. Whatever happens, the entire complex will have to close for refurbishment for three years in autumn 2014. It is really important that the reclaimed skate space opens well before then to ensure that people can still skate at South Bank during the closure period. Q. How much money will Southbank Centre put towards the new space? A. We are going to put in as much money as necessary to make this a fantastic space. We have already committed £100,000 to get the project started and will spend more as the plans develop based on what the skaters need. Q. What is your response to more than 50,000 people objecting to the relocation of the skate space? A. We always knew this was a difficult decision and it is very hard for us too. Many people don’t like the idea of the skate space moving even 120 metres away. We hope that we can do two things – we want to persuade people that Mellow Banks can become an amazing, powerful skate space that will build a history of its own, and at the same time we want to enable the Festival Wing to allow thousands of other young people to have space for the things that inspire and excite them. Southbank Centre is a place for all communities and we want to use our site for the good of the widest possible number of people, including the skateboarders, graffiti writers and BMXers.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 23:22:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015