Designating Livingston Skatepark

Closed 9 Feb 2024

Opened 21 Nov 2023

Contact

Designations

0131 668 8914

designations@hes.scot

Feedback updated 28 Feb 2024

We asked

From 21 November 2023 to 9 February 2024, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) sought views on a proposal to list Livingston ‘Livi’ Skatepark.

The skatepark is one of a handful of surviving skateparks from the late 1970s – early 1980s in the UK. It has architectural interest for its pioneering design and the innovative approach of its architect, Iain Urquhart. Retaining its public park setting, the skatepark is an important survival of public enterprise architecture by Livingston Development Corporation and has social historical interest as an icon of the Scottish skate and bike scene. 

Through Citizen Space, we invited members of the public to tell us if they agreed with the proposed designation and if they had further comments to make.

We consulted directly with West Lothian Council as the planning authority.

This consultation followed on from an earlier engagement exercise in April-May 2023 in which we received 557 responses to our online survey asking for comments and information to help inform our assessment of the skatepark (Share your views on Livi Skatepark).

Our selection guidance for designation and the policies we work to are published in the Designations Policy and Selection Guidance document. 

You said

We received a total of 184 responses including one written response from the Local Authority and 183 responses to our online survey.

The overwhelming majority of people who responded expressed strong support for the designation. No one raised issues that brought into question the cultural significance of the site for designation.

We have reported in more detail on the consultation in our Report on Handling, which can be downloaded from the Heritage Portal or from the bottom of this page.

Comments from the online survey are published in full (where we have appropriate permissions).

All of the relevant reports can be downloaded from the bottom of this page.

We did

After considering the comments received during consultation, we have

We have published a Report on Handling for this case at Heritage Portal. This can also be downloaded at the bottom of this page.

Overview

We propose to designate Livingston 'Livi' Skatepark as a listed building.

The skatepark is one of a handful of surviving skateparks from the late 1970s – early 1980s in the UK. It has architectural interest for its pioneering design and the innovative approach of its architect, Iain Urquhart. Retaining its public park setting, the skatepark is an important survival of public enterprise architecture by Livingston Development Corporation and has social historical interest as an icon of the Scottish skate and bike scene. 

This public consultation follows on from our earlier engagement exercise in which we received 559 responses to an online survey. The information provided by this exercise has informed our view on the interest of the skatepark for designation.

We have published two reports on this engagement exercise: 

We are now gathering views on our proposal to list this building at category B.

Read more about why we think the skatepark meets the criteria for listing by downloading our Report of Handling.

How we designate listed buildings

We list buildings of special architectural or historic interest. A dedicated team researches and assesses all designation applications.

Concrete skatepark - railings foreground - grey sky background

Why your views matter

We’d love to know whether you agree with our proposal.

To help you respond to the following survey, please read why we think Livingston Skatepark meets the criteria for listing by downloading our Report of Handling.

We welcome comments on the impact of listing or the accuracy of our assessment.

If you have previously given information on the significance of the skatepark as part of the earlier online survey, there is no need to do this again. We have taken your comments into account in preparing this proposal.

You can tell us if you agree with our proposal by completing the short questionnaire below. 

This questionnaire usually takes 5 minutes to complete.

Find out what comments we consider and what happens next in our consultation guide or watch our designations video on YouTube.

Update: The deadline for this survey has been extended from 23 January to 9 February 2024.