Harden’s skate park has edged out some stiff competition to be named as one of the best facilities of its kind in NSW.
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Hilltops Council was recently presented the highly-regarded and sought-after ‘Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) Excellence Award’ at a ceremony in the Hunter Valley recognising local government and public works projects.
The skate park project was started by the former Harden Shire Council, with the assistance of the Skate Park Committee and was designed by Position Skate Parks in Young, with consultation from the kids who would be using it.
Hilltops General Manager Anthony McMahon said the skate park at Newson Park was named as the winner of the category recognising excellence in design and/or construction of a local government project under $500,000.
“The award for this project is certainly one shared by the entire community, given the significant efforts of the Harden Skate Park Committee in raising funds, securing grants, scoping designs and generally helping guide the overall project,” Mr McMahon said.
“Hilltops Council’s engineering delivery manager Mark Crisp, along with council staff who worked on the project should also be extremely proud of this achievement, particularly considering we were up against councils with much larger populations and staff numbers who were also vying for the award.
“There was a record number of nominations for the 2017 IPWEA awards which serves to underline the high level of inspiration, innovation and technical management involved in the Harden skate park’s development and construction,” Mr McMahon said.
Planning began five years ago, with construction commencing in May 2016 and the completed skate park opened on September 18, 2016.
The project was undertaken with funds from council, the federal government, corporate sponsors including Southern Phones, Sibelco, Bendigo Bank, Essential Energy, the Kruger Trust and Hume MP Angus Taylor.
The remaining funds were raised by the hardworking committee of Cathy Sanderson, Michelle Irving, Kellie Potts, Matthew Stadtmiller and Amanda Shae.
Regular users of the skate park Jordan Cozis, Kyle Haye and Corey Doohan agree that the judges could not have made a better choice.
“The surface is really smooth, it is nice concrete and very well designed,” Jordan said.
