Livingston Skatepark

Site record created as a result of enquiry into potential heritage recognition. Data from internet search on the Skateboard Scotland directory (https://skateparks.skateboardscotland.com/view/livingston/ accessed 6.9.2022) and a planned site visit on 8.9.2022.

Written by HES (AGCH) 6 September 2022.

Livi skatepark is situated in Almondvale Park, Livingston, immediately to the south of the River Almond. It was completed in 1980 and opened in 1981 by Livingston Development Corporation to designs by Iain Urquhart (executed by Rainbow Construction Ltd). Later extensions date to 1992 (designed by Kenny Omond) and 2015 (Gravity Engineering Ltd). A landscaped viewing area with elongated curving steps is situated on the higher slope, immediately east of the skatepark. There are boulders arranged individually and in groups on the grassed areas around the skatepark and its access footpaths.

The earliest part of the skatepark was built between1980–81 and lies at the northeast end of the site. It comprises two large adjacent features of shotcrete (pressurised concrete) construction, orientated northwest to southeast. The Double Bowl (or Pool) is formed of two interlocking, coped circular bowls with flattened bases, each around 9 metres in diameter, one deep and one shallow. The coping was added in 1987. The Reservoir also comprises a flattened base and measures approximately 24 by 18 metres, with a banked carving area to the northwest, known as an ‘Andover Bank’ and a halfpipe to southeast.

A curving concrete wallhead, often with a range of graffiti on its ‘inner’ southeast-facing elevation, defines the northern edge of the decks (flat platforms) of the deep bowl of the Double Bowl and Reservoir. On the date of visit the graffiti included images that referenced skateboarding’s origins from the late 1970s and early 1980s. On its outer northwest elevation, the wallhead forms the vertical top part of a climbing wall of textured concrete that rises from a splayed base at ground-level. Two flights of concrete steps give access to this part of the skatepark from the riverbank below.

The 1992 extension comprises two elongated parallel bowls, extending perpendicular (southwest) from the reservoir, separated by a small hip, and separate, larger ‘mole-hill’. At the southwest end of the skatepark, the 2015 extension consists of a rectangular bowl, a fullpipe, and two round bowls or pools. A street area (completed in 2015) is located in the triangular area between the 1981 halfpipe and 1992 extension. It consists of a horse-shoe-plan circuit of slopes, one section with ledge and flatrail, around a central area of shallow transitions.

Visited by HES (AGCH, JC, MS) and Skateboard Scotland, 8 September 2022, 27 October 2022 and 13-14 April 2023.