A recent battle over the building of a new state-of-the art skate park in Mumbles, Swansea, made national news after locals took to beeping their horns every time they drove past the mansion of a multi-millionaire. The mansion owner, and a group of other extremely rich residents, didn’t want the skate park on their doorstep and thought they could stop it being built. But the skaters, and the wider community, had other ideas. This is the story of class war on wheels.
By MS Redfern, additional reporting by Tom Davies in Swansea
As Jeff, a local skater from Swansea, tries to talk, he is having to compete with the sound of car horns beeping in the background.
“Skating is probably my main hobby,” he says over the noise. “A lot of people here on the ramp come down almost everyday to skate. It’s a good solid community and we need an upgrade.”
The upgrade Jeff is referring to are plans for a major new skate park on the site of the existing ramp, which sits between Mumbles and Swansea and is in a state of disrepair.
But opposed to the redevelopment are a group of wealthy residents who don’t want young skaters park anywhere near their mansions.
The battle for the skate park, between young people fighting for a new public facility and a tiny group of well off individuals opposed to it, has quickly become a flashpoint for anger and frustration at the rich takeover of public space.
Behind Jeff stands the biggest house of them all: an enormous white building, oozing money, which looks like it should belong in Palm Beach, Florida.
Instead it sits in the wealthy area of West Cross, Mumbles, and belongs to the used car dealer turned multimillionaire Mark Bailey. Bailey, who owns the Trade Centre Wales (2019 profit: £20million) is the most vocal of new skate park’s opponents. The constant beeping is directed at him.
“Basically, Mark Bailey, who lives in the house behind us has opposed the new skate park coz he thinks it’ll be an eyesore for his already eyesore of a house, but we’re all here to tell him to get lost basically,” says Jeff. “This ramp has been here long before he was here and that’s it.”
What Jeff says is true. Bailey has been living in his seaside mansion for over a decade, but the existing skate ramp has been in place for “just short of 20 years”, according to the Mumbles Skatepark Association. Bought in 2007 for £875,000, the tycoon also paid for the property next door for £1.5 million to be turned into a luxury guesthouse. In other words, he developed the mansion in full view of the skate ramp and community of skaters who regularly occupied it.
Swansea Council planning documents also that reveal Bailey pursued work on his guesthouse despite official complaints from neighbours that dust and excessive noise from the works would affect them. Swansea Council approved Bailey’s plans despite these objections.
Bailey’s opposition to the new skate park is well known, but it was the last minute high court injunction that took people by surprise and generated such a fierce backlash.
The new park, after years of lobbying by skaters, was all but confirmed. The local skate group said that the site had been identified, the contractors confirmed and the plans finalised. That was over a year ago, then suddenly a new barrier emerged: the requirement for an independent assessment to ensure the identified site was the best one. This had to take place before Swansea cCuncil could hand over the land to Mumbles Community Council.
After nearly a year of anxiously waiting, and several thousands of pounds of public money later, the assessment came back to say that yes, the site on the seafront site was indeed the best one for a new skate park.
Swansea councils’ planning committee voted in favour of the development plans last year, and the council agreed a 25-year lease of the land to the Mumbles Community Council in January. Finally, skaters thought the park was on its way.
But then, in April, a judicial review, put in by lawyer’s acting on behalf of Bailey and the other wealthy residents, was lodged over the decision to transfer the land. This legal action was not over the merits of the skatepark itself, but the whether or not the council followed a fair process in making the decision to hand over the land. This had the potential to scupper the building of the park and was yet another delay.
When news started to filter out in May that Bailey was the main force behind the judicial review, and was named as offering to fund a wholly different re-development of the land, which didn’t feature a skate park, people began to take matters into their own hands.
In the middle of the month, people started to share the slogan #BeepForTheBellend on social media, and the idea took root.
One early post on Facebook, that was shared 62 times, involved a very simple method of protest directed against the multi-millionaire: “Mark Bailey AKA Trade Centre Wales has called in lawyers to stop the skatepark in Blackpill going ahead just as it was about to start construction. In response people have decided to beep their car horns when they pass his house, see how he likes that. #beepforthebellend.”
The idea was taken up with enormous enthusiasm by locals, who seemed to relish the opportunity to bash the rich, and object to the prospect of a Bailey using his money and power to thwart the dreams of so many young people.
The beeping went mainstream. By the end of May, news reports had began to cover the #beepforthebellend protest, with one local councillor objecting, and saying that she had heard so much horn-blowing outside Bailey’s house that she had to put her foot on the brake.
In a sign of how much the idea caught on, one public Facebook post from the end May, by a dad who works in construction, simply read:
“Well its been the best day out in over a year.. started in limitless swansea then food in harvester ice-cream and arcades in mumbles followed by #beepforthebellend.” The message was followed by several laughing emojis.
Another video showed someone ripping off a Trade Centre Wales badge from their car, and urged others to do the same.
One person even made a video mash-up of Avril Lavigne’s 2002 hit ‘Sk8er Boi,’ amended with the lyrics: “His name is Mark, he is a twat, can I make it any more obvious?”
Bailey himself appeared to upload a video onto YouTube that was filmed from the front of his house, and showed a barrage of beeping, in an apparent bid to attract public sympathy. The video was quickly deleted, however, after it started to go viral with people sharing it in support of the skaters and against Bailey and the other residents.
It seemed that people weren’t just in favour of a new skate park getting built, but were outraged at the thought of wealthy individuals bulldozing over the dreams of young people, and bullying weak councils into submission.
Across Wales, but particularly in cities where land is highly prized, people have witnessed developments win approval even when they have faced overwhelming opposition from locals.
Council planning committees have all too often gone with the wishes of big developers, rather than the interests of the people they are meant to serve.
On top of this, the housing crisis has seen the rich able to live where they want in large properties, often in multiple prized locations, whilst an underclass of renters are forced to pay off their landlord’s mortgage for the privilege of living in low quality housing.
For many young people, the idea of living in secure and affordable accommodation, let alone a mansion like Bailey’s, is a distant fantasy.
The recent riot in Mayhill, one of the poorest areas of Swansea, led by young people, brought into sharp focus the way in which public money rarely goes to the places that need it most.
When Mark Bailey and the other six residents, who of course can afford good lawyers, put yet another hurdle in the way of a much needed facility for the city’s youth, it hit a raw nerve.
Things came to a head at the end of May, when after an apparent altercation with some skaters, Bailey and his wife went to confront the young people directly.
The pair – who were themselves filming the skaters – were caught on camera walking onto the half pipe.
The middle-aged man boasted to the skating teens that he was out driving his “brand new Ferrari” as he received taunts from locals due to his virulent opposition to the planned extension for the skatepark.
He went on to threaten one of the young people that he’ll “fucking smash your face in” but soon after chastised the skater to “watch his language”.
Bailey then claimed that he had offered to pay officials to keep the facility away from his property: “I offered £500,000 to sponsor a skateboard park in a different location. And what answer did I get? Nothing.”
When a skater refused his offer, Bailey replied in faux astonishment: “You don’t want my money?”
The Mumbles Skatepark Association, who have been central to the campaign for a new skatepark, praised the calm manner of the youths when faced with Bailey’s threats that day.
“The way the youngsters dealt with the incident was exemplary and we have had a large number of contacts praising them,” Jason Williamson, Chairman of the MSA, told voice.wales:
“A GoFundMe page was started by the community to raise money to provide some gifts to the group in recognition of this, and it reached its target within 12 hours!”
“We feel it’s unacceptable for anyone to be subject to such an approach, irrespective of age, and note the real concerns from our community, particularly as our sports attract a lot of young participants.”
The video went viral, even appearing on Mail Online, one the world’s most visited news websites. When people viewed it, they saw the dispute in microsim, and it made the anger towards Bailey even stronger.
Within a matter of days, he withdrew his opposition to the proposed skatepark, possibly in an effort to curb criticism of his character and to shore up his business interests.
Bailey announced via Facebook that he would “unreservedly apologise” to the skaters he harassed, but said that he and his family had been subject to abuse leading up to the incident, “culminating in objects and verbal abuse being thrown at me as I tried to drive into my home on Wednesday.”
Whilst he backed down and conceded “on making any objection to the redevelopment at that location,” he also reiterated his offer to pay for the skatepark to be relocated away from his house, adding: “I do hope that those involved will accept my apology when I get to speak with them.”
Now that Bailey has publicly committed to removing all opposition to the project there is hope that progress will resume shortly on the new park, though he is not the only signatory on the Judicial Review.
“Following news of the Judicial Review,” says Willaimson, from the local skate association, “the wider community has really rallied to support the redevelopment and we have had a huge number of messages of support and seen an increase in our online petition, which now exceeds 16,000 signatories.”
The skaters are desperate for the new facility, which will replace the existing ramp built almost two decades ago. If it does finally go up, it will be the most advanced outdoor skate park in Wales. Free for all to use, it will be a huge pull to young people in the city and beyond, who are poorly served after a decade of cuts hitting youth facilities.
But the skaters have shown that they have the support of the majority of people, and haven’t been afraid to use it. For now, it looks like the protests have paid off.
“Obviously there’s been some altercations with the guy who lives up there in the white house,” says skater Crazy Chris, referring to Bailey’s mansion. Chris has come down with other skaters on the Saturday after Bailey confronted the group of young people. “He came down here and caused a bit of disruption.”
“We’ve come down here to prove our point, you know,” says Chris. “We don’t want the skate park built anywhere else. We want it built here, where we’ve been skating all our lives.”
On the same day, Mark Morris was sitting on the wall overlooking the bay. He’s not a skater himself, but cares passionately about the situation.
“I came down here today because I saw on Facebook the posts about somebody wanting to wreck this place. My kids have been coming down here for years, other people’s kids have been coming down here for years. There’s no reason to wreck this place. From what I understand he wanted to remove the skateboard ramp that was here, move it to some other place. He was gonna pay for it because he doesn’t want to have it right out in front of his house, but he should have thought of that before he built his house.”
It is this basic sentiment which has fuelled people’s anger: that these young people. their hopes and aspirations, deserve the best locations the city has to offer, rather than being shoved somewhere else whilst those with the money buy exclusive access to the city’s most cherished places.
*This article was amended
IF YOU VALUE OUR JOURNALISM, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE FROM JUST £3 TODAY
