The Dunedin City Council adopted a new play spaces plan last week, with three skate parks set for resurfacing and new ramps being trialled.
Dunedin Skateboarding Association president Nic Hart said skaters were "pretty chuffed" the city’s skateboarding facilities were getting some much needed maintenance, but hoped work would go beyond simple repairs.
"Our expectation is certainly that there will be some changes with that. I think that resurfacing is hopefully a little bit of a misleading term."
Skate park design had evolved since the newest park, the Thomas Burns Skate Park, opened in 2003.
"The stuff that’s there is very geometric and rigid. What people are building nowadays is a lot more fluid and sort of open to interpretation and being able to use the different things in different ways."
A council spokesman said plans to resurface the skate park at Fairfield were progressing and the council was working with the association to redesign the space.
The Thomas Burns and Mornington parks would also be refurbished between 2022 and 2024, and new ramps would be installed at Marlow Park in South Dunedin, Chingford Park in North East Valley, and Ralph Ham Park in Macandrew Bay.
One of the measures of the play spaces plan’s success was that "there are lots of options for wheeled and ball play and all of our skate parks are in very good condition".
Dunedin skater Chey Grace, speaking at the Thomas Burns park on Monday evening, said the city’s skate parks were in rough condition and repairs were "a long time coming".
Mr Grace had been skateboarding for more than 20 years, and skating facilities had changed very little in that time.
He hope new facilities would be considered once current ones were brought up to standard.
