A bereaved dad is spearheading plans to open an Olympic standard skatepark in Liverpool in memory of his late son.
Johnny Santer tragically lost his son Gabriel, who was also known as Gabe, in 2020 after he fell from the sixth floor of a multi-storey car park while skateboarding in the city centre.
Now, Mr Santer has teamed up with members of Liverpool City Council to provide a safe space for skateboarding in what would be a fitting tribute to Gabe.
Mr Santer believes that there is a need for better infrastructure for urban sports in the city and hopes an Olympic standard skatepark can prevent another tragedy.
He said: “Gabe was there because when he was out skateboarding there was nowhere else to go.
“After years of austerity, there’s been no money for councils to provide these sorts of facilities for the youth. If there had been that sort of facility then Gabriel wouldn’t have had to have gone to these dangerous spaces.”
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Mr Santer said Liverpool City Council agree that there is a lack of suitable provision for urban sports in the city and they have been in talks with him to address this.
Mr Santer is also campaigning to pass the Multi-Storey Car Parks (Safety) Bill, known as Gabe’s Law, that aims to increase the minimum legal height of guard rails for multi-storey car parks from 1.1m to 2.7m and would also require 24-hour staffing at the facilities.
He said: “I need to get charitable status to set up the foundation for Gabe. That will need to run alongside a feasibility study that I am hoping will be carried out by the City Labs at Liverpool John Moores University.
“We have all of the stakeholders in place, the community is on board, and from what I can gather the council are wanting this to happen.”
Liverpool John Moores University hosted a charity event to raise awareness of the campaign and related causes as artists designed and donated skateboards to be put up for auction.
The event raised over £3,500 to be shared between The Ben Raemers Foundation, Trussell Trust and Mind.
Mr Santer said: “At its core, Gabe’s Law is a really practical piece of suicide prevention legislation. It seemed fitting that we’d work the Ben Raemers Foundation which looks at talking about mental health issues within the skateboarding community.”
Mersey Sport Live spoke to Johnny Santer at the LJMU hosted charity auction. Watch below>>>
