the final disgns are drawn up for the outdoor concrete park - finally there folks.

BUS is holding a display of the 3D drawings @ unit13 skatepark this saturday eveing the 29th of August

come along and enjoy a free session and see the park design as worked on by Mini brown, JP matthew & Matt Gillespie.

BUS

hey folks, Matt Gillespie and John P Matthew (directors of BUS) were at a meeting with the BCC recently and things are goin well and we can see the home straight for the outdoorpark. There were some issues that had to be resolved with the land owners and NIE and im pleased to say all issues are resolved and the skatepark design is finally getting underway with FREESTYLE skatepark builders. We were also pleased to find out that we now actually have a little more land than we origionally thought we had to work with which such make the design a little more interesting.
Nothing is set in stone but if we can keep goin with out and hindering issues, we could skatepark builders breaking ground in april 2009. Stay tuned for further updates very soon.
 
BUS

For immediate use

Success for new Urban Sports Park

Belfast's first ever urban sports park is expected to be open by Easter next year at the M3 underpass at Nelson Street.

The news follows the award of £370,000 towards the project from the European Union's Programme for Peace and Reconciliation managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).

Belfast City Council has been working for a number of years with Belfast Urban Sports (BUS) to create an iconic city centre sports park. The Council and Better Belfast are funding the remainder of the £500,000 total cost.

The new funding will allow construction of the park to begin by the start of 2009.

Hey folks, things are getting better for us on the new CITY PARK skatepark front - i cant say yet for deffinate that we have all the funding we need but i can say that our first park design meeting with FREESTYLE is later this week or early next week so make your own mind up about that one. BUS will be holding a NAME THE NEW SKATEPARK CAMPEIGN - anyone can help name it just send your suggestions to us via our email address team@ourbus.org.

 

BUS

Hey folks, i havent put up any news in a while, but here goes.

BUS has drawn up an sports development plan for the development of urban sports in the greater belfast area for the next 5 years. This SDP has been approved and will now stand at the top of our prioritites for the future once the new concrete skatepark is built in Belfast. This means that we will endevour to support the bmx, skate and inline community by providing skateparks, coaching and regular events. We also aim to increase the participation rate in these sports over the next few years and get more femals involved in all areas of urban sports.

BUS has a meeting coming up on the 15th august with the  Belfast City Council members that are working with us to achieve the funding for the proposed outdoor skatepark off Nelson street in Belfast. The 15th of August is the day when we find out if we have achieved our funding from the sports council for Northern Ireland SCNI. So far all targets have been met in good time and many hoops have been jumped through to get to where we are now. Fingers crossed - lets get a skatepark!!

I went on 2 trips recently to look at 2 different skateparks to asses the quality of them and to see if the local councils were happy with the money they'd spent on the parks.The first skatepark i went to see was Bushy skatepark in Dublin - i personally like this place as its a fast and flows very well. Dublin council told us they were pleased with how the park turned out but had a few ideas of things they would do differently, which we have taken onboard and will consider when its our turn!

The second skatepark i went to visit was in harlow near london, this park is only finished about 3-4weeks ago, so i was keen to see if the park was everythin people wanted it to be. I also asked to see if the finished product was what the council and design group were origionally looking for. They told me that when they met the Skatepark building and design team, the design team took all their ideas onboard and changed things about a bit so that the park would flow better and have more variable lines, which is positive. Harlow council said the Skatepark building company they used were pleasant and easy to work with.

 

The reason i visited the two skateparks was to look at the quality of the finished product and find out how the skatepark building firms were to work with, because one of them will be building the belfast park!

The mayday skatejam was a great success with a good turn out and a sick level of skating. Wild combo's and hammer droppers were being fired out all day and deserved winners walked away with a good old bag a goodies - thanks to our sponsors, holla, concept, cake, Fivarz,Extreme and Boarderco. I have a few pics up of the day, so check the photies.

- Many thanks to all who came and had a good time - mayday jam part two comin soon!!

matt

Mondat 5th of may there is a skate jam/ comp @ the unit 13 skatepark, details below:

12:30 START
£10 entry fee (burger and juice included in price)
great prizes
product toss
Demos from cake & boarderco
dj's (to be confirmed)
bands to play (to be confirmed)
good times to be had (confirmed )

comp format:
under 14's
15 and over

20mins warmup(whole of the park)
45mins jam session with best skaters through to final (judges decision is final)(no halfpipe allowed)
final consists 3 mins 2 individuals at a time for 10 finalists (no half pipe allowed)
best trick session on one or 2 ramps (25 mins)
Half pipe jam?texas death match? to be confirmed
prize giving/photo op what ever...
bands start
party time

SPONSERS: HOLLA, CONCEPT,,CAKE, BOARDERCO,FIVARZ,CORONA

cred. to holla skate shop for help!!

Hey everyone, B.U.S. blog no.1

 I know i should have done this ages ago but here goes.

B.U.S - shorts for Belfast Urban Sports was set up in 2006 after years of meetings with councils and getting nowhere. In 2007 BUS teamed up with the Belfast city council to apply for money to build an out door skatepark in Belfast city centre - we are one of the only countries in the world with out a public skatepark!!  Bus has had many meetings with BCC and have gotten to the stage where we have secured half of our over all application for funding. We nearly had all our funding secured in 2007 but due to olympics and higher powers we lost out on that years funding source. This year bein 2008 we are well on our way to securing the rest of our funding to make up the 250K applied for to build the skatepark. If all goes to plan which we hope it will ,we might be starting to build the outdoor belfast park in september.

For everyone's info B.U.S is made up of of 7 directors and 3 volunteers the directors being, Matthew gillespie - chariman, keith brown - vice chairman, liam lynch -secretary and john paul matthews, glen lyall, rob lowey, andykelly as acting directors. We are happy to welcome our new volunteers, Ciaran Mcbride, Niall Craig and pete Adam - cheers for the help and welcome to the team.

i will update the blog as and when news comes about.  

BUS