Committed band of skateboarders trying to preserve Fremantle's best spots

WA's bustling port city of Fremantle is changing and in between a swathe of redevelopment stands a persistent, dedicated and vocal group experiencing some mixed results — the skateboarding community.

Their most recent victory came when they warded off a move to destroy the Beach Street location of a much-loved skate park to create parking spaces.

Campaigners who wanted the site saved painted the words "no parking" over the area.

But the success of keeping the local haven was overshadowed by the loss of one of the world's most coveted urban skateboarding locations, situated just across the road at the 1927 Woolstores.

'We see the demand'

The skate park on Beach Street was built in 1999 on land owned by the Public Transport Authority (PTA) and leased to the City of Fremantle.

Last month, the PTA announced it would terminate the agreement and convert the skate park into parking.

But a quick and loud campaign by the skate community garnered support from the state and local governments and overturned it, which Fremantle Mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge said was a testament to the significance of skateboarding.

"We see the demand, we love having skaters as part of our community, and we're happy to do whatever we can to help," she said.

"I think moving forward the opportunity is to really look at skate facilities in Fremantle [and] say where are the gaps and what do we need to do to cater to this, not just now but into the future?"

Win drowned out

On Monday, the same day the Beach Street announcement was made, the developers of the Woolstores, Human Urban, appealed a condition to preserve the skating ledge outside the building.

The uninterrupted stretch of metal ledge has attracted the world's best skaters to Fremantle since the 1980s for its perfect combination of length, width and location.

The site was bought in 2022 and, for the past two years, the WA Skateboarding Association (WASA) has fought tirelessly to keep one particular section.

But to no avail.

Human Urban's appeal win means the section of the ledge that offers the best skating will now be destroyed to make room for a doorway.

"We all work full time outside of this campaign, and we've put hundreds and hundreds of hours into this, particularly around this condition with the doorways.

"If you remove these sections, it just won't work the way it did before. It would be as if you were to put a hole in the middle of a football field and say you can still play a game there."

'Must be reopened'

In a statement, the director of Human Urban, Kyle Jeavons, said 93 per cent of the ledge would remain, which he said would allow the skate community to continue to use it.

"This has never been in question," the statement read.

"After more than 40 years of vacancy, revitalising the Elders Woolstores is essential to Fremantle's long-term success.

"The two openings in question that have existed for 98 years are on private property and must be reopened to the public, not only for this project's success, but for the broader renewal of Cantonment Street and Fremantle as a whole."

Missed opportunity

Zachary Tilghman from WASA said they had to fight to get in the room and be consulted in the first place, and Human Urban missed an opportunity to work together.

"From the get-go, more collaborative consultation would have really made an amazing and exciting new development for Fremantle," he said.

"It really could be a world first where the developer has included a long-standing local community that's already in the street space, and they could have carried that into the future.

"Even though it's a large loss for our community, we've never been stronger or more closely knit, and that is kind of a silver lining that's come out of this whole thing."

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