PLANS to build Scotland's first indoor skatepark are in line for a £300,000 city council grant.

 

On Thursday, councillors will decide whether to award cash to the Loading Bay project in Borron Street, Port Dundas.

The skateboard park will be set up in the loading bay of a large industrial warehouse on the canal bank, just yards from Pinkston Watersports Centre which was officially opened in May last year.

Early plans suggested it would cater for skate boarding, BMX biking, scooter and inline skating and would be designed like a street plaza with ramps, rails, ledges, stairs and other features of an urban landscape.

The Loading Bay is the brainchild of a group of individuals who own, operate and build skateparks across Scotland.

A council report in 2013 highlighted the importance of the paddlesport centre to the Port Dundas area.

It said: "As the initial intervention at the Port Dundas basins, the paddlesports project is an important catalyst project.

"It will act as a stimulus for the development and future habitation of the former industrial site, breathing new life into a neglected canal-side asset and re-awakening a forgotten but unique area of Glasgow by finding a new role for the Port Dundas area.

"By establishing a new economic purpose, Port Dundas can act as a lynchpin to the wider regeneration of North Glasgow."

Liz Cameron, the city council's economic development spokeswoman, said the former industrial character of the area lends itself well to the creation of an urban sports hub.

A wakeboarding centre will open at Pinkston Watersports Centre in March this year and a "unique" urban gym is also due to open in 2015 in a biding next to the Loading Bay.

The Canal Wake Park will be a cable park where wakeboarders - described as snowboarders or skateboarders on water - will be pulled along at speed by a cable.

This allows them to use obstacles on the canal to perform similar tricks to those which can be done behind a boat.

It is expected the cable park will put Glasgow at the heart of the fast growing sport and attract large numbers of visitors to the area.

Mrs Cameron said: "The indoor skatepark would be the first such indoor facility in the city with the aim to provide a facility of international quality.

"The council funding ward will allow more detailed design and development work together with a fully developed business case to be completed."