Skateboarder thanks Blackpool community for helping him raise £1.5k for lights in Stanley Park's skateboard area

Chris Dyas, 36 of Newcastle Avenue, set up a GoFundMe page to raise the funds because when the nights draw in, many skateboarders say it is too dark to skate safely.

As well as the poor visibility, there are also concerns about personal safely as other youths sometimes gather there on dark winter evenings.

Blackpool’s new £220,000 skate park opened in Stanley Park in May this year, offering skateboarders a fabulous 4,000 sq m facility.

The new amenity, packed with stairs, ledges, rails, curbs, quarter pipes as well as a mini ramp to test riders’ skills, was the brainchild of two local skateboarders, Simon Bennet and Big Woody, who founded the Stanley Park Skate Park Development Group to convert a run-down area of Stanley Park into an attraction that will bring people in from across the county.

But although the amenity is much-cherished Dyas, as he is known, says lighting became an issue after there was a change in the way the neighbouring netball courts in Stanley Park were lit, when new lights on the court left the skateboard area less illuminated in the evenings.

Dyas said: “When it gets darker now, you can’t really skateboard safely.

"So I decided to set up the crowdfunding page, hoping to raise £1,545.

"I wanted to see what kind of community response there would be and amazingly I’ve been able to raise enough buy the lights.

"I’d like to thank everyone who helped.”

Dyas has purchased two portable LED lights units with four special batteries, and will set the lights up whenever he skates at the park.

But he is still hoping a more satisfactory solution can be found to illuminate the park, as the LED lights can only be used there when he brings them.

Dyas said he was helped with his fundraising by tattooist girlfriend Natalie McCullagh, who donated fees for tattoos carried out at the DNA studio in Layton and raised £550 for the fund.

Another fundraising event last Saturday, featuring stalls and raffles at the Bootleg Social on Topping Street, raised £400 thanks to support from skateboarders, including the group Skate Like A Girl.

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