Fight to save Trick Factory moves on to Bucky Doo Square and Chapel in the Garden
Philip Colfox and daughter. It's not every day you see your Dad wearing a bright orange boiler suit to campaign for skateboarders. But this was to be no ordinary day...
TODAY is the big day to save the Trick Factory, the indoor skate park in Bridport that’s threatened with destruction by property developers.
So says the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, who lives near Bridport and is now helping to organise the campaign against the park’s shut-down. It’s scheduled for demolition if landowners Haywards get the right at a planning appeal next year to redevelop St Michael’s Trading Estate and the South West Quadrant of Bridport
So, from about 11 am this morning, around Bucky Doo Square in Bridport, and in front of the Arts Centre, users and supporters of the Trick Factory have been asking people to back a petition. It’s reckoned that by the end of this afternoon 500 or 600 people will have signed up and perhaps even been photographed too.
Busking for the Trick Factory in front of Bridport Arts Centre
Clive Stafford-Smith (wearing grey body-warmer) behind a busy petition table
Making a clear stand: Save the Bridport Trick Factory
Many users are clad in bright orange in reference to the notorious jumpsuits which inmates at Guantanamo Bay are forced to wear. Clive Stafford-Smith is best known for his work with Guantanamo captives.
A short film about the Trick Factory is also showing in Bridport Arts Centre.
Also this weekend…
On Sunday December 20, the collection from a Christmas carol service at the Unitarian Chapel in East Street, Bridport, will be donated to the cause. (That’s The Chapel in the Garden, opposite Rawle’s butchers).
Trick Factory supporter and local landowner Philip Colfox says: “My family are putting on a little carol service in the Unitarian Chapel on Sunday, at 4pm, for people to come along and play their musical instruments and have a lovely time and we’re going to dedicate the collection towards the Trick Factory.”
Mr Colfox has got involved in the campaign because he says: “My little boy absolutely adores bicycling, skateboarding, and I know how important it is for young lads to have something to do, keep them occupied, so as far as I’m concerned the Trick Factory is absolutely one of the best things for young boys.”
Some sample messages from the wall of the Trick Factory
I am x years old and I live round Bridport. If I wasn’t at the Trick Factory, I would be skating up the side of your garden wall.
I am x years old and I live round Bridport. If I wasn’t at the Trick Factory, I would be doing my homework… NOT!
I am x years old and I live round Bridport. If I wasn’t at the Trick Factory, I would be begging my parents to move to Florida.
I am x years old and I live round Bridport. If I wasn’t at the Trick Factory, I would be lying in the gutter outside the kebab shop.
I am 50 years old and I live round Bridport. If I wasn’t try to save the Trick Factory, I’d be trying to save the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Guess who that last one was!