IN your article 'Skatepark faces legal action' (Malvern Gazette, June 28), you describe the skatepark as a "magnet for young people". The skatepark is situated in Victoria Park along with two tennis courts, a full-sized grass football pitch and two tarmac football pitches, a basketball court and play area.

In response to the complaints about noise, I agree they are absolutely correct. Football games attract crowds of supporters, children's playgrounds and other sports areas all create noise. The skatepark also creates noise.

The noise is created by young people enjoying the park the council has provided for them.

I don't think both sides of the argument about skateboarding in Malvern have ever been given in the Malvern Gazette.

The mini-ramp in the Youth Centre grounds, for example, was slated several times in your paper and several key facts were missed.

Skateboarding is a sport that requires dry conditions. Urethane wheels require dry metal, wood or tarmac to roll on.

You can compare it to an indoor sport such as bowling or pool. You could play these sports outdoors in good weather - but only an idiot would put a pool table outside! So when the skateboarders of Malvern found out about the mini-ramp they were disappointed to find it was going to be located outside and worse - in a field. Depending on the weather, the ramp was only used for the four or five summer months. Even on a sunny day when the ramp was dry walking through a hundred yards of mud made using it impossible.

What the mini-ramp did provide was a shelter from the rain and a meeting place for kids. The noise and vandalism often reported in your paper was put down to the skateboarders who used the ramp. From the explanation above you can see that if it was on a day when it was raining (two out of three?) it was unlikely to be skateboarders who were responsible.

The skatepark is a great facility and all the skateboarders in Malvern are grateful for what the council has provided.

There are, however, points that your paper has missed. The initial plan to sink the park into a hole in order to cut down noise must have seemed fine. What they forget is that around the hole are hundreds of yards of turf of a football pitch. Not only in the winter and spring months but whenever it rains the water runs off the football pitch into the skatepark. Even when the sun can dry the skatepark the water continues to seep out of the banks surrounding it.

There are a set of very expensive floodlights surrounding the park that have never been switched on. Every night this winter when I arrived home from work at 6pm it was dark. The younger kids that finished school or college could skate it until six, so perhaps an hour a day.

Removing the skatepark will certainly not stop kids coming to Victoria Park and it will not stop trouble. What it will definitely do is stop kids from skating.

TOM IVES (skateboarder, 20 years old), Howsell Road, Malvern.