Over the past couple of years, the Forres Skate Park Initiative (FSPI) team has made excellent progress on the way to realising a family-friendly all-wheeled sports facility for Forres.
As Moray came out of Covid 19 restrictions, the FSPI board of trustees was able to meet face to face, supporting accomplishment of several major project milestones. These included an initial public consultation showing the preferred location to be Grant Park.
Significantly, FSPI’s talented trustee Nikk worked on a concept design and produced CAD drawings to help visualise plans. Thanks to a local business, a typography survey was completed and Nikk produced further drawings to show the location of the all-wheeled sports facility within the park, and how the visiting funfairs could still be accommodated.
The FSPI team held two further consultations within the Forres Community Centre - one for Grant Park stakeholders and another for the public – which were supported by Moray Council’s Community Support Team. Both events were well attended and, prior to the consultations, local school children competed to design the new FSPI logo, which was voted on at the public event. The winning logo was designed by Innis Jordan and 3rd Pixel Ltd are recognized for committing its resources to digitizing the design.
The board also recruited a new member to increase the team’s skills and expertise, leading to Louise Pearson joining FSPI as a trustee during the summer. Louise is originally from Forres but currently lives in Gairloch, where she works for Wester Ross biosphere. So far, Louise’s contribution has been invaluable.
A couple of months ago, Moray Council confirmed that the deeds of Grant Park Trust allow for a lease of land. Consequently, the board has been working on a Community Asset Transfer (CAT) for the area of land next to the squash courts.
So what’s is next? FSPI need to raise around £3,000 for the first phase of the project and submit the CAT to Moray Council to secure the land. Further fundraising is then required to reach a target of around £500,000 to £750,000 - the current estimated project cost. As a start, FSPI has distributed charity tins around Forres, which incorporate contactless and QR code technology whilst also accepting cash donations. However, to maintain momentum the team needs more support; therefore, FSPI are actively recruiting new board members and would welcome interested and talented individuals to get in touch via our volunteer page by clicking here
Of note, an all-wheeled sports background is not a requirement, although a commitment to improving the lives of the community members (especially the town’s young people) is!
In summary, progress has been healthy but to build on recent successes, the team needs new membership so that it can hit the ground rolling in 2023, and accelerate towards the construction of an all-inclusive, all-wheeled sports facility in Forres.
