Ventnor Blog

Bardon Vectis are very nice people!

They are going to give us a lot of what we need to start our unique skatepark project.

We already have the wooden ramps in place, and will soon have a concrete dream too thanks to Bardon Vectis.

Eccleston George are on board, crafting us a skatepark out of the concrete unlike anything else in the world. Every obstacle will be a skateable sculpture, and with a sprinkle of Dave Badman’s metal-working genius our park will be alive. (more…)

Another great day of walks lined up as part of the Isle of Wight Walking Festival. If you attend any of the walks and would like to share your experience with our readers, do get in touch.
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The Isle of Wight Walking Festival continues today with a great choice of walks around the Wight.

Follow the links before for more details on each of the walks taking place today.
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As part of the Island Walk the Wight Festival,the Ventnor Heritage Museum are hosting a walk this morning.

Leading the walk will be Graham Bennett and for 2-2.5 hours, he walk up and down Ventnor (don’t forget our steep hills) and fill you in on history at the same time.

The walk is free and any donations received will go towards the upkeep of the Museum.

Meet at 11am in the Central car park.

Image: Auntie P

VENTNOR HAMMER PURBROOK IN OPENING VICTORY
Ventnor began their latest defence of the Southern Electric Premier League Division 2 title with a 117 run thumping of Purbrook on Saturday.

The Islanders, aiming for a unique fifth successive championship, may have lost Birchall, Shutte, Lloyd and Friend from last year’s side and Matt Compton and Martin Blackman through injury from Saturday’s team, but they still proved far too strong for the side from Portsdown Hill.
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Thanks to the Ventnor Skate Park Group for this update on the latest position with saving the Ventnor Skate Park. Ed

There’s been a lot of really positive moves for the Ventnor Skate Park since the last posting on here, so much so, that we’ve not had time to let you know about it until now!
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The SQ2SQ 2008 team are group of firefighters who will be cycling from St Thomas’ Square in Newport to the Vatican Square in Italy this coming September. The purpose of their marathon cycle is to raise funds and awareness for the Wessex Cancer Trust.

Recently, John Giddings, the organiser and promoter of the Isle of Wight Festival donated a pair to Festival tickets to the group and they are today launching a prize draw that anyone can enter. (more…)

VentnorBlog fave, Dame Ellen MacArthur, has been up in the Smoke impressing the heck out of everyone she came across.

The write up in The Telegraph couldn’t have been more complementary in its praise.

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The Isle of Wight Walking Festival kicks off this weekend - details of the launch to follow tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a list of all walks taking place on Saturday.

There are loads to do, if you fancy stretching your legs this weekend, including one around the town in Ventnor and Ryde.
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It’s that time of year again and each week, we’ll be brining you news from the Ventnor Cricket Club courtesy of Graeme Burnett. Ed

Ventnor progressed to the second round of the IW Senior Cup in unsatisfactory fashion on Saturday after opponents GKN were unable to raise a side.

A hastily re-scheduled fixture saw Indian Gymkhana visit Steephill for a Twenty 20 match. Neil Westhorpe (40) and Ian Hilsum (43) top scored in the home team’s total of 164-1 with the visitors restricted to 76-7 in reply.
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It’s with absolute open-mouthed astonishment that we read the latest press release from the council today about the Ventnor Skate Park.

The last paragraph carries the following sentence,

“Any other groups or individuals who are interested in taking on the licence can still get in contact with the council if they have their own proposals for the park.”

A better illustration of what is so wrong with the current administration sitting at County Hall couldn’t be more clearly shown.

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Isle of Wight Council director of environment and neighbourhoods Stuart Love said “The council is delighted a group has contacted us expressing an interest in taking on the licence to run Ventnor Skate Park. (more…)

If you’re a fan of rugby or just want to help young rugby players from the Island, get yourself Newport way on Sunday.

Teams from many part of the UK will be travelling over to play young teams form the Island

There’s an incredible 1,600 children going to be taking part in the matches on Sunday between 10:30 and 3:30.
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Finally, VentnorBlog has received the breakdown of the £60,000 figure quoted by IW Property Services to Ventnor Town Council regarding the Ventnor Skate Park.

We should have received this on Friday when the IW Council press office tell us they sent it, but for some reason, it didn’t get to us. Something to do with it not being sent to our regular VentnorBlog email account, but there you go.

We’ve got it now and can share with you details of the costs estimated to complete the renovation of the Ventnor Skate Park.

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Sitting at the desk looking out onto the sea this morning, just caught sight of a brightly clad pair on a tandem.

“Ooh look a tandem,” I piped up “Oh another, another, another, another, another, another and another!” (more…)

If you feel like you need a break from work — and who doesn’t every now and again? — and want to make your brain ache a little, let us introduce Pongout.

It’s a combination of two old video games, Breakout and Pong.

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There have been some very positive steps forward for the Save Ventnor Skate Park Campaign over the past few days.

Over the weekend, we contacted Radio One DJ, Bestival Head Honcho and Isle of Wight Ambassador, Rob Da Bank and we’re pleased to report that Rob is more than happy to be involved in the campaign.
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It was on Wednesday afternoon that we were promised a breakdown of the £60,000 figure that IW Council had stated to Ventnor Town Council would be needed to complete and maintain the Ventnor Skate Park.

The Press Office promised us ‘chapter and verse’ by mid morning the following day and when we wrote back asking what time we could expect the breakdown (surely a simple cut and past from a spread sheet?) we were told …
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Good to see this little piece on the CP Website today about the new half pipes being tested for Ryde Skate Park.

It’s also encouraging to see that this skate park has the support from the Ryde Youth Club and the Hampshire Police Authority.
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The last of the four chats we had with people using the Ventnor skate park within the space of an hour - there were others to speak to, but we couldn’t get around them all.

These three Ventnor girls, aged around ten, were clearly unhappy about the idea that the skate park might be demolished by the IW council, saying “I don’t want it to be closed down because it’s really fun.” (more…)

More interviews from the single hour that we were at the ‘never used’ skate park in Ventnor - yes, that’s three sets of people we spoke to in that short time … and counting.

Mitch, James and Toby are all late-teenagers from Shanklin.

They’re regular users of Ventnor skate park and have been for many years.

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THIS IS AN AMENDED VERSION TO THE ONE RELEASED YESTERDAY
ISLE of Wight Council is asking parties interested in running Ventnor Skate Park to come forward as soon as possible or it may face an uncertain future. The facility was opened in 2001 following a request made to the council. Keen to support the proposed skate park, the council provided free use of its land to house the ramps.
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While down at the Ventnor skate park the day that we heard that the IW council were planning to demolish it, we saw a young lad developing his skating skills.

When we say young, we mean young. This little nipper was a mere five years old.

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We have just heard that the County Council have extended the deadline for someone coming forward to take on the lease of the Ventnor Skate Park until 2nd May.

While this extension is welcome, it is still insufficient time to gather support, funding etc. and raises more questions, including …

• Why should this lease and the stringent conditions attached to it be the responsibility of one individual?
• Why are the County Council trying to shed responsibility when they should be encouraging activities such as this?
• WHAT IS THE BIG RUSH?

If you have a comment to make about the future of the Ventnor Skate Park, please add your comment to the post Ventnor Skate Park To Be Closed? Updated

As you will have read earlier in the week on VentnorBlog, the Isle of Wight Council have informed Ventnor Town Council that they’ve estimated that it will take approx. £60,000 to take on the project of completing the renovations of the Ventnor Skate Park and maintaining it.

The group involved with the renovation had estimated that it would take about £6-7k at the most to complete the project and in fact had a quote from a concerned skater whose in the construction game of £800 on Tuesday night to finish the concreting of the initial section. (more…)