By Ellie Busby
Gone are the slippery dips and see-saws. This new $1.4 million playground is built for teenagers to do flips.
As parkour videos continue to go viral online, the City of Parramatta is jumping on the trend with the opening of its first parkour-themed playground on Thursday.
KongQuest Parkour helped to open the new park.Credit: Nick Moir
Hidden under one of Sydney’s busiest motorways, the new park is part of a pilot program to transform about 1000 square metres of dead space into a multipurpose park.
Although open to people of all ages, the space – known as Junction Street Plaza – is aiming to get teenagers “off the screen” and back outdoors, said Parramatta Lord Mayor Martin Zaiter.
“A lot of the playgrounds you have in Parramatta and other LGAs cater for the very young, and there is that gap, and I think that this plaza here is just fantastic for teenagers and above,” Zaiter said.
“We want to make it more appealing especially for teenagers who sit there on their screens to get out from indoors and to go and do something outdoors, so this is a great option for them.”
The park opened with a spectacle of flips and tricks from parkour professionals from KongQuest Parkour.
One of the performers, Mikayla Brady, believes having a dedicated parkour space will make it more accessible for locals to learn the up-and-coming sport.
“For parkour, it did come from a space where not a lot of people have a lot of money, so the fact that we now have dedicated spaces where we can train, that is free, where we can all come together, it’s a lot more accessible for a lot more people, instead of having to pay for memberships upon memberships for other sports or buy equipment,” she said.
Likening it to skateboarding, KongQuest’s Carl Luiker said parkour was on the rise and new spaces such as this would make a huge difference to the sport.
A parkour athlete flips over Parramatta’s lord mayor at the opening event.Credit: Nick Moir
“I think it is very similar to what happened with skating not too long ago,” he said.
“The path that it’s taken, where it’s gone from an underground cultural thing to mainstream, and you have sporting events and competitions. The same thing is happening with parkour.”
Funded by City of Parramatta and the NSW government, the multipurpose park features spaces to play basketball and table tennis. CCTV cameras have also been positioned around the park, with Zaiter saying he’s “pretty confident” it’s going to be safe.
With the playground open, the lord mayor is hoping to get the NSW government’s support in transforming the remaining 5800 square metres of underutilised land under the motorway.
“I don’t think there is enough open space, especially in Parramatta – there’s a very big social infrastructure gap,” Zaiter said.
“This is just a pilot and I’m very much hoping that the state government, after today’s success, that they do come on board and they do give us funding to utilise the remainder of the space under the M4.”
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