This winter there will be two temporary ice rinks in the borough - one at Kew and the other, as it was last year, at Hampton Court.

The Hampton Court ice rink, which was set up in the courtyard before the Tudor west face, was a sell-out during its season of several weeks over Christmas and New Year 2003/2004.

Now Kew Gardens is following suit with an ice rink in front of the Temperate House from 27 November to January 2005. On offer for skaters is the ambience of an evening on ice under Kew's Christmas lights in the heart of a heritage landscape, along with hot chocolate and other goodies.

Tickets must be pre-booked for the hour-long skating sessions, and details are on the website.

Tireless campaigner for the return of a permanent ice rink that meets international standards, Richard Meacock, is delighted to see that interest in the sport remains high in the borough, which lost the world-renowned Richmond Ice Rink to riverside luxury development about 15 years ago. It has never been replaced and Mr Meacock has a proposal on the table for a first class rink and Internation School of Ice Skating (ISIS) on the Old Deer Park, close to Pools on the Park and other sporting facilities.

"These are temporary establishments that are charging four times what we would be charging for the public to use a permanent rink," he pointed out. "But this is evidence of how the public turn up in droves for these public facilities, which are nowhere near as good and not the proper answer for a permanent replacement of the rink - which is what we all want.

"These are just fairground attractions to take money from people and not to be compared with the excellence of our 5,000 seater stadium proposal. But having the ice rink at Kew supports our case. We have been struggling with officers of the Crown Estate over our proposal for ISIS. It is obviously no longer an argument that an ice rink is not suitable for Crown Land, which is good news. The council in Richmond must face the fact that ice skating is popular and do something to help us with our negotiations with the Crown Estate.

"If some of the young people who try ice skating on these temporary facilities and enjoy it could have the opportunity for tuition, they would make progress, have discipline and find achievement in a venue that is alcohol-free. The thing about these temporary rinks is that no serious skater takes them seriously, nobody can be given encouragement or education to move on if they feel they might enjoy a longer association with skating. There are no lasting effects and that is rather sad," Mr Meacock concluded.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

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