Young people and the right to skate

CYP Now's predecessor Young People Now launched a campaign called Positive Images, which aimed to remedy the fact that some 70 per cent of press coverage of young people was negative. At the time it was not unheard of for even government press releases to use words like yob when referring to young people, and young people themselves were hardly ever quoted in features about them. Now, although the recent riots did make me wonder whether there would be a return to such relentlessly negative coverage, I would have to say that things have definitely improved, and one example is this piece on skateboarding youths outside Colchester's very shiny new arts centre.

In brief, it is a story of how young people have taken to skateboarding outside the new arts centre, which has a temptingly rampy and steppy space, and are damaging the steps there. But rather than taking the "appalling young people are mindlessly destroying an arts centre" line, it includes quotes on how the community might work with the young people to keep the skating going while not damaging the area. And the comments underneath are also broadly positive towards young people, for example: "I welcome this unforseen use of our new public area and hope that there will be no heavy handed approach brought in to put a stop to it."

This is great. It's great that the presence of young people is seen as a boon and not a problem - the problem is they are damaging the area, not that they are there at all. The only thing is, and I am surprised to find myself holding this view given everything I believe about the positive presence of young people in public spaces,  I do think that while young people have just as much of a right to use a public space as anyone else, other people also have a right to use that space without getting mown down by an errant skater. 

The young people outside the arts centre are not intimidating. They are just doing their thing. But them doing their thing means other people can't do their thing as well. Toddlers for example cannot run free outside the centre, as one commentator points out. Another says - well, you should be holding on to them - to which I would say why? It's not a road.

What do you think? I am really interested to hear. Have I suddenly grown old and conservative? Does the right of young people to skate in what is definitely an interesting skating space trump everybody else's right to cross the space safely? Is it silly to say the skating is stopping other people using the space? The fact that my children are toddlers and not teens right now may well colour my judgement. Tell me I am wrong, and why.