Hong Kong's skateparks dogged by safety issues and design flaws

The appropriately named Marty McFly might have outwitted the bad guys in the fictional version of 2015, as depicted in 1989 movie . But the "hoverboard" he piloted is still a dream, despite the recent debut in California of the Hendo Hoverboard, which levitates at 2.5 centimetres.

Still, its earth-bound predecessor, the skateboard, retains considerable cachet among the heirs of the original skateboarders, California's "sidewalk surfers" of the 1950s.

Hong Kong has a plethora of outdoor and indoor skateparks, from Fanling to Chai Wan and Kwun Tong - although some of them are well past their prime. One of the biggest and potentially the best is also the newest, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) skatepark at Tseung Kwan O's Velodrome Park.

Opened last year, the 2,600-square-metre park, with its half-pipes (U-shaped ramps) and bowl (imagine a large flan dish) has an impressive pedigree: it was built by Convic, the Melbourne company behind the Fanling, Po Kong and Tung Chung skateparks. According to the LCSD, it was "specifically designed for skateboarding and aggressive inline skating, with … varying levels of steepness and difficulty for skateboarders of all abilities".

The last point was central to the project accepted by Convic, whose 600 facilities around the globe include the world's largest skatepark, in New Jiangwan City, Shanghai (which, at a whopping 13,700 square metres, dwarfs Tseung Kwan O's), as well as parks from Sweden to New Zealand.

"We were approached by the Hong Kong government and we worked closely with the Hong Kong Federation of Extreme Sports [X-Fed] to identify what was required in the community," says Simon Oxenham, Convic managing director and former elite-level skateboarder.