GAZETTE & HEARLD: Skatepark campaigners and local residents are still at loggerheads over plans to build a new skatepark at Westmead in Chippenham despite fresh attempts by North Wiltshire District Council to bring residents on board.

District councillor Carol O'Gorman met up with residents at a meeting last week to discuss progress on the plans but failed to allay fears they had picked on the wrong site.

Mike Osborne of The Paddocks said: "We're not going to be pushed about over this we'll take our fight all the way and if we need to we'll go for compensation on the loss to our property values this park would mean."

He said around 30 residents from the Paddocks attended the meeting.

"I don't think the council realised how strongly so many of us feel about not having the skatepark here," he said. "We feel it would affect our whole quality of life."

The district council has identified the Westmead playing fields as the most suitable site to build a new skatepark following the closure of the facility in Monkton Park after months of complaints from residents about noise and antisocial behaviour.

The executive committee agreed in October to set aside £80,000 to build the skatepark and since January the Skate in Safety Users Group has been working with a skatepark designer to come up with a purpose-built facility.

This has proved a complicated process because of Environment Agency requirements regarding flood prevention, soil quality and the need for a fence but the design is currently being finalised and is set to come within the budget limits.

Two reports examining the impact of skatepark noise have also been drawn up and conclude this would not be a problem, providing the site was locked up in the evenings.

But nearby residents remain unconvinced. Mr Osborne said: "The council says tests have been carried out on how much noise the park would generate, but those tests were carried out down on the field, not in our gardens and you can't get a real sense of the decibels involved from the flat surface down there.

"They need to come up our balconies and listen to the noise we already put up with from the traffic on the Avenue La Fleche and then they'll see how much worse it would be with a skatepark which could be open until 8pm on weekends.

"The committee offered us the opportunity to meet with the skaters and come up with a solution but we want to deal with the people who will make the decisions."

Fellow resident, Peter Doggett, said the whole process was a shambles and warned the district council could face a repeat of the Monkton Park fiasco if it pressed ahead with the site.

He expressed doubts about car parking, lack of supervision on the site, toilet facilities and the suitability of the soil to support a skatepark.

"They still do not seem to have addressed any of the objections and concerns we have put forward," he said.

The problem of identifying a new site has proved a headache for the district council since September 2001, and a forum considered some 15 Chippenham sites in July 2002, including Pewsham Way, Westcroft and industrial units on Bumpers Farm.

More recently officers even looked into the possibility of creating an indoor skatepark in the Studio Hall at the Olympiad, but the running costs would be too high.

Carol O'Gorman, lead member of youth for the district council, said she welcomed the chance to talk with the residents about their concerns.

She said: "We have offered the residents the chance to put forward three members to work with the council and youths to discuss the issues of implementing a permanent skatepark in Chippenham and we will now wait for them to come back to us on this."