Skip to content

City of St. Albert fixes skate park fence after safety concern

Renovations at the city’s skateboard park are underway but the fence meant to keep people out has one resident worried it could do more of a harm than good.
0506 skate park sup
A construction fence was installed at the city's skateboard park while refurbishments are underway. After the fence was repeatedly taken down, the contractor attempted to keep it all together by screwing boards across. A resident saw the screws poking out and voiced safety concerns for the children who use the park. SUPPLIED/Photo

Renovations at the city’s skateboard park are underway but the fence meant to keep people out has one resident worried it could do more harm than good.

Work to repair the concrete, relocate the two existing grind railings and retaining wall enhancements got underway in May with expectations to have the skate park finished by the end of June. Half the skateboard park remains open with a chainlink fence dividing the two, while construction crews continue with the refurbishment.

Attached to the fence are long wooden boards, which have been screwed together. Some of those screws are protruding out and face the open side of the skate park.

Tylor McCormick, who has been skateboarding for decades, often comes to the park to get a workout in and noticed the screws jutting out of the fence. The 31-year-old cabinetmaker and father said he didn’t think it was safe to have something like that around, especially with children riding around on skateboards and scooters.

“It's atrocious,” he said on Monday. “I couldn’t believe that. That’s not normal just in a regular public area, let alone a place that children gravitate to. Anyone can be thrown off balance when they’re playing around on a scooter, a bike, a skateboard or on rollerblades or whatever. Kids especially are thrown off balance. The only reason those screws are sticking out is because these guys decided to cheap out and use thin material and just drive long screws all the way through.”

McCormick said it was unacceptable for a construction fence to be put up like that and explained joiner pieces go on top of fences to ensure they are connected.

“I’m on a construction site here in the city and there is not one piece of wood scabbed on anywhere because it is not allowed,” he said. “I don’t know who the company is or what their history is but it’s definitely a hazard for young kids.”

Meredith Willacy, senior project manager with the city, said once the city learned about the issue from the Gazette on Monday, the contractor went down to ensure the screws were no longer sticking out.

“I did bring that to the contractor's attention and they have since been ground down,” she said. “You’d have to really be right up against the fence for it to be a safety hazard. So probably the wrong type of screw was used. It just extended a little farther out. They weren’t extending more than maybe a quarter of an inch. To mitigate that, the contractor has since ground everything. So that issue is no longer there.”

Willacy explained a fence is standard procedure for a construction project but the boards were added because the fence was being taken down every day. This resulted in crews having to spend several minutes to put the fence back up, which was sometimes left in disrepair.

The city had the option of closing off the entire skate park in order to complete the refurbishment but Willacy said the decision was made to do the work in phases so a portion could always be open to users.

“We felt that if we fenced off the entire site it would be irritating and frustrating for the users,” she added. “Due to the type of work that we’re doing, which is primarily some concrete repair work as well as some additional landscaping, we raised the grade on the one side and put a swale in. We felt that we could probably do this in phases to at least allow the users to have a portion of the park.”

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks