Refurbish Donkey Common Skatepark!

Aim

Transform Donkey Common skatepark at the gateway to Cambridge's Mill Road into a modern, safe space for skaters of all ages.

Cam Skate (Skateboard Cambridge CIC) is a community interest company run by and for skaters. We operate The Warehouse, Cambridge's indoor skatepark, and run coaching programmes, holiday camps and community sessions that bring hundreds of kids, teens and adults through our doors every month.

Donkey Common skatepark sits at the gateway to Mill Road, one of Cambridge's most vibrant streets.

Built nearly 20 years ago, the park is in need of refurbishment. The design construction of this skatepark makes it difficult to use safely.

Additionally the outdated design makes this one of the most unpopular skateparks in the city:

• The footprint of the park is too small to allow for more than one person to skate at once.
• The ramps are too big, which makes them unsuitable for beginners, and for a park of this size.
• The current installation looks clunky and dated, presenting an eye-sore.

We propose replacing this park with a street-style plaza with ledges, banks and manual pads.

Above: Cam Skate have produced an Outline Concept Design indicating the kind of skatepark we are proposing for the space.

Plaza style parks are beginner-friendly and allow many skaters to use the space at once. They also suit the central, visible location at the gateway to Mill Road.

Our Outline Concept Design was professionally estimated by a skatepark construction company at £125,000. We have a number of funding streams that will come together to make this project, including £25,000 from Cambridge City Council and £50,000 (in progress) from Thalia Community Fund.

Our proposal of a plaza-style park allows for a range of possible parks that will all be a great addition to Cambridge. If we hit our £20,000 target, we're 95% of the way towards our £100,000 flex target which will allow for a simpler design - anything past this point will go towards making the park bigger and better!

Thanks to Sport England's Movement Fund, every £1 you pledge to this project will be matched by Sport England with another £1 - up to £10,000! So if we raise £10,000, we'll reach our £20,000 target for this crowdfunder.

Having a top quality free outdoor skatepark in Cambridge will benefit the community in many ways. More people will be active, more often, skaters will have a greater choice of parks, and more people will get into skating.

This skatepark will benefit not just skaters - it will enliven the public space, making it more appealing and safer for everyone who passes through Donkey Common. In a letter of support for the project, PC Beatrice Ley said: "any increase in pro-social use of the spaces would likely diminish anti-social behaviour". Also, the low-lying obstacles proposed will open up sightlines across Donkey Common, as opposed to the large, ugly ramps that are there currently.

Cambridge is one of the most unequal cities in the UK. Sport England's Place Need Classification puts cambridge in the 2nd quartile both for Children & Young People's physical activity and on the Health Index. Cam Skate's own data shows more than one in ten visitors to The Warehouse come from Abbey Ward, the most deprived ward in Cambridge, with significant numbers from East Chesterton and Kings Hedges too. There's a genuine need for a free, central, no-booking outdoor skatepark for families who can't afford paid activities.

Cam Skate will also activate the space with a series of beginner-friendly skating events, free for the community, in the style of our skateboarding Taster Days that we have run at the Warehouse.
Above: students of Cam Skate's latest Holiday Skate Camp at The Warehouse indoor skatepark

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 14th September 2026 at 12:00pm