Loughton's Dozen: Number 6...

Making Worthing It – Let’s have an ice rink in town

Tim and Peter Bottomley set up this campaign to give young people a say in how the local community is being developed particularly on key sites like Teville Gate and the Aquarena. We need to get on with a state of the art mixed development at Teville Gate to include leisure facilities for young people easily accessible by transport links.

This development has dragged on for ages and is obviously not being helped now by the problem of raising funds for development during the credit crunch. Tim took groups of local students to make presentations at the Town Hall in front of the Mayor and councillors, who were then wowed by their ideas. Tim is now liaising with councillors, the Youth Mayor and the Youth Cabinet to make sure young people are inputting into these plans.

In the meantime Worthing Council has backed Tim’s suggestion for a temporary open-air ice rink in the town based on the popular venues which have attracted crowds to ice skate in Hyde Park, the Natural History Museum and other places over the Christmas holidays. This will happen throughout the month of February to include half term and will be in the town centre.

Ultimately Tim is also pushing for an ice rink to be incorporated into the replacement Aquarena, perhaps based on the existing paddling pool which could then be used during the winter as well as the summer months, or another of the town’s existing facilities.