It has never been a better time for skaters around the world with skateparks opening like mushrooms on speed and the United Kingdom, since August 2021, is also one park richer: Rushcliffe Country Park skatepark, built by Canvas Skateparks.

We talked to Canvas skateparks about their latest project and asked them the usual 3 questions.

Introduce us to the park – tell us its name, where it is, what kind of park will it be (more street-oriented, just a bowl, a plaza...), its approximate dimensions, if it’s already open to the public, that sort of stuff.

Rushcliffe skatepark in Ruddington - Nottingham has had a long history with skateboarding, in fact, it’s had 3 different versions across my lifetime. It all started with a death-defying 6ft halfpipe with a rusty coping and bumpy wood and steep extension. Enough to make any beginner who stepped foot at the bottom of this beast of a ramp walk away. A couple years down the line an extension was added onto this half pipe – A 3ft mini, a 5ft spine, roll in jump box and another 6ft quarter with an extension. While all this was great, the mini was the only good learning feature, and over time the wood got bumpy and a visit to this skatepark would be often be overlooked in favour of a skate on the street outside my house.

Is there any feature of the park that you’re particularly happy with, that came out really nice or is really fun to skate?

The Latest version of Rushcliffe skatepark is designed to be a plaza, catering for more street orientated skateboarding. Due to the abundance of skateparks in the Rushcliffe area, the idea of a plaza style of skatepark was to complement Radcliffe - a gnarly transition skatepark, as well as Lady Bay – a classic park style of skatepark with a mix of street and transition hence a street plaza added balance into a triad of new, high-quality skateparks in the Rushcliffe area. The special thing about these skateparks is that they are all within a 30-45 min cycle of each other making that skatepark tour of Nottingham that more scenic!

Any dream trick or line you’d like to see go down in any of the park’s features or areas?

The park spans 18 meters wide by 36 metres long. The plaza is enclosed within a rhythm/pump track section that runs along the outside of the skatepark, a crazy amount of speed can be gained by pumping around smooth concrete blends and flying over steep hips and banks. I’m stoked about the central street section; I had dreamed of doing so much stuff when I first saw the plans for this park! Tre-flip down the stairs, a kickflip backside smith on the mellow hubba and a nollie tre out of the dish (most of these still yet be ticked off the list… This section all your basic street skater needs (apart from a flat bar) can be found here, a small manny pad, kicker to euro gap (which also acts as a manual pad with an out ledge), an insanely buttery marble ledge, A hubba with a lengthy 3 stair on the right-hand side and a mellow bank on the left-hand side. Now they were the “basic” features, this skatepark has 3 unique features which aren’t typically found in your everyday plaza. A mini mini 2ft quarter spanning about 7 meters long. This is ideal for a beginner learning how to drop in, whilst still being incredibly fun for a more advanced skater as it allows for long grinds and impossible lip combos! This has got to be one of my favourite sections. The next item on the list is the raised half-dish, this feature was inspired by ‘stoner’ skatepark in LA, this feature is a wild one to have in a skatepark, it requires quick feet and lots of balance to skate this object with style, this feature is definitely one to play with. The last feature is a triple manny pad-ledge combo, it has a perfectly sized small manual pad at the lowest height which then builds up to two separated blocks with a gap in the middle, the highest part of this feature is a slanted ledge allowing for wall rides off the ledge – the most creative street skaters can find endless possibilities with this setup.

The skatepark is now open to the public, there are lots of food and coffee vans right next to the park, all the locals are super friendly and up for a chat, this place is definitely worth visiting.

Visit Skatepark Visit Canvas Skateparks website