About Brampton Skatepark

Rainbow Community Garden sits in Brampton Park, East Ham inside a large, fenced area next to Brampton primary school. It was previously occupied by Rainbow Nursery buildings, which were demolished some years ago.  

Rainbow Community Garden group and Skate Newham first secured London Borough of Newham (LBN) People Powered Places funding for a wooden skateboard facility within the community space. Recognising local needs, the aim was to provide a small facility, blended into the garden using a variety of greening projects at its edges. 

Multiple community visions were created for this integration, including the idea of a grape vine pergola over the whole ramp to create shade for skaters during the summer.

The local skate community made the ramp plans, secured material donations from local businesses to stretch the funding budget to create an exciting and accessible mini ramp.

Meetings with LBN parks department and Newham Mayor highlighted flagged risks with the proposed structure, so a new agreement was made to create plans and raise further funding in order to build a facility with concrete. 

Skate Newham sought the advice of Skate GB, skatepark contractors and submitted plans to RoSPA for a concrete facility. While waiting for confirmation of these plans, the community upgraded the broken site foundations to eliminate existing trip hazards. 

Rainbow Garden Group also applied for further PPP funding with the aim of upgrading the broken concrete foundation slab area. The concept was to create a large, adaptable surface that could be used by the community for a multitude of activities. 

Skate Newham also planned to use this adaptable space by creating temporary skateboard structures, which could be built by the community and stored when not in use.

Following a rigorous social media campaign, the proposals gained a large vote from the community to secure the PPP funding.

Skate Newham secured RoSPA clearance for its concrete mini ramp plans and LBN’s Parks department gave the go ahead to local groundworks contractor Newham Build to begin construction. 

Following construction of the concrete mini ramp and new flat concrete slab, LBN proposed a new relationship with Rainbow Community Garden. A new fence divided the community garden from the skateable space to enable a much larger area to be developed for skateboarding. 

Rainbow Garden is now a manageable community space that will be operated under a license agreement with LBN. The new arrangement enables the whole community to gain greater freedoms to develop and evolve the garden space.  

The new relationship between LBN and Skate Newham allows for the further development of Brampton Skatepark under the management of LBN Parks, offering full public access. 

Skate Newham is now planning further skatepark developments to suit needs of the local community, and will seek funding, in partnership with LBN. 

Brampton Skatepark was opened to the public in time for the school holidays, summer 2024.