STUKELEY Meadows estate in Huntingdon could get a £180,000 skate park so long as construction work starts before the New Year. Some of the funding for the park has become time-limited, which means it is conditional on an early start to building work. But

STUKELEY Meadows estate in Huntingdon could get a £180,000 skate park so long as construction work starts before the New Year.

Some of the funding for the park has become time-limited, which means it is conditional on an early start to building work.

But it is such a major project that it will require planning consent, which might have been a bit of a problem. It is now technically impossible to achieve that in 2007 because the planning application includes a six-week public consultation period.

The final hurdle is Huntingdonshire District Council's cabinet's agreement to stand behind a £20,000 funding shortfall for the scheme. Although that hurdle is likely to be cleared by HDC's cabinet tomorrow (Thursday), any planning application cannot be approved before January.

But £40,000 - from the Youth Bank - has become conditional on the work being commissioned before the end of 2007.

Luckily, however, many components of the park have to Many components of the park have to be pre-fabricated off-site - work that does not need to wait for the planners, Sue Lammin, the council's head of environmental and community health services told The Hunts Post.

"The timing's tight but not impossible," she said. "The Youth Bank has just told us that the money is time-limited."

There are three possible sites at Stukeley Meadows - where most of the town centre skaters live - the favoured one being near the Homebase roundabout on Stukeley Road, Dr Lammin added.

"The young people are quite specific about what they want. We are equally specific about the quality of the equipment and controlling the noise.