Issue 13 has been printed, folded and sent to HowDo?! for distribution earlier than expected thanks to Footprint Workers Co-op! Sources say some have been found in the city centre and as far as Halifax. Read on below for the full unedited versions of the interviews with BD1 Skate and Hope Shooter. The top two floors of the Oastler market carpark have been condemned for about 10 years, over the last year we built a skate park there. Capital of cycling took a risk giving us permission, and recently we have had email support from bradford councillors as well as carpark and market council workers, which we hope will help us find a new home before it gets demolished. Connie sent an awesome email to our local councillors which is below: We are a group of skate volunteers who have been working with the Capital of Cycling to turn the derelict top floors of the Oastler Car Park into a DIY Skate Park. After 10 months of community effort, the park finally reached a beautiful point: We now have 2 mini ramps, 2 quarter ramps, grind boxes, rails, a kicker ramp and even a 100-year-old Ronisch grand piano manny pad. We've built a team of around 12 volunteers and keyholders, working closely with the team at Capital of Cycling to share the space. We've kept the space safe, clean and well taken care of. It is much loved and has provided skaters (boards, quads and inlines) from a widely diverse background with a safe, sheltered, smooth skate space. Skaters have come from across the gender, neurotype, race, religion, culture, parenting, income and ability spectrum. People have travelled from out of town to visit (with a recent visit from an international skate sociologist). We have also had artists come in to paint on the walls and pillars. Everyone has been coming to use the space for their mental health, whether skating, cycling or painting. Prior to this, our users have felt unsafe, embarrassed, intimidated, and fearful of repercussions/arrest under bylaws in the available public spaces in and around Bradford. For those of us who are able, we feel forced to travel to Leeds to find support. You can see our journey on instagram at www.instagram.com/bd1.skate.volunteers, please see the Skate Clips highlight for some of the most fun parts, or the Art highlight for some of the artists' work on site. We're appealing for any support from yourself and allies in Bradford Council to be able to continue skating and cycling safely. Our community defies the outdated deviant stereotype of the skater community and truly represents the diversity of Bradford. We'd love to be able to continue to nurture this. Feedback from Dave, Director of Capital of Cycling confirms "The difference to the space made by the skaters being there is really notable. Cycling and skating could both benefit from a city centre space for activities." We can do a lot with any unused, sheltered, smooth location, and we are not asking for funding or investment. We're simply looking for a disused space that already exists, that can be activated - even temporarily. We've seen exciting spots like Loading Bay being used - what will happen to this space after BD25? We're also aware that the Kirkgate Centre is next in line to be demolished, with a less than 50% occupation and two levels of car park above. There are lots of unused spaces around the city centre and we feel we could bring some much-needed love and community to them. Please hear us and help us find the next safe space for our community to move on to. We will take great care of it. The Skate Sanctuary in Leeds ran a series of rollerskating classes in Girlington focused around global majority women, and also open to other women. They had a WhatsApp group which I got added although I never attending a session and after the sessions ended there was a handful of us that met up in various carparks and tennis courts. One member works for Capital of Cycling and we spotted the beautiful smooth carpark floor they were using and asked for access which they gave us!. Connie put a socials presence together and a call out using her skateboarding connections and over the year we have had access we have added key holders and invited anyone who wants to to open up and post a session for anyone else to attend. We have had ramps and boxes donated from individuals who had built them, or bought them, from a bunch of bladers in Halifax, and a 100 year old Ronisch grand piano manny pad donated by Leeds Civic Society, and vans to transport them either hired by BD1 volunteer Khalid or loaned from Ravenstaging. We’ve loved painting and otherwise creatively vandalising the space with beautiful trash, paste ups, and lots of street artists have dropped by and used the space. (Safranart, Bisto, Onist, Yaya amongst others) Connie arranged our minority gender day with Australian Skate Sociologist Dr Indigo Willing which was awesome and sort of gave confidence to our identity as mainly minority gender skaters but open to all. Some local bradford legend skateboarders prefer to come out of hours, as they have always done in the Oastler Carpark. The ramps and obstacles can be moved and rearranged which has been used really creatively. I'm going to answer that from my personal perspective as a middle aged parent/carer residing in Shipley whose core memories from kid upwards were formed in the unused or misused industrial spaces in Bradford. I don’t drink, and I’m sort of restless, so I don’t really come into town to bars or concerts, so its been lovely to have a place in town to sort of hang out again and begin to reconnect with BD1. As teens we were always looking out for wasted spaces, studios, free parties, and we dreamed of having our own community place or whatever, but it was never anything I had the skills or means or confidence to contribute to. We don’t need an overdeveloped community space. I think people just need an accessible place that is affordable and the rest will come if there is a need and drive. Skate culture is a massive teacher of how a DIY place can function and I’m just learning. ..this isn’t the first Bradford skate DIY but you would have to speak to some of our old school members about the old Mecca bingo hall… As a parent/carer, my options are limited in someways, but that stuckness that comes with caring for someone who is disabled has sort of focused my energies on what I need - a place to move and skate, and somewhere to create. If I have that, and even better, the capacity to share a place and meet other people then I still feel like I am growing despite the sociatal and physical limitations around caring and disability. The freeness of the carpark has been key, both in cost and access. We don’t pay for it, so no one owns it, anyone can have a key and run a session or turn up and create or take photos or do whatever. The community has sort of been a byproduct- the people who wanted to come and use the place, and by turning up, or adding themselves to the WhatsApp or the insta they are part of the community. Its not been without its teething problems, we didn’t know the boundaries of what we could get away with in regards to any official interactions with the space eg council? health and safety? Market manager? Capital of Cycling? we just didn’t know who might feel like we shouldn’t be there and what might trigger that which led to a lot of confusion and anxiety in the first few months but it all works out. I feel like we were getting more community vibe just as the notice to vacate was given to CoC etc which was a bit of a blow. We don’t know how long we have now. I feel like I've learnt a lot about what can put people off and the landscape of the local skating community along the way. Also what I can commit to and what i just can’t. The carpark doesn’t have toilets, and is not accessible to those without risk awareness so we’ve not been able to be as inclusive as we would have liked and would be if we had a more secure space. We don’t know how long we have! But if we had a new space- an empty store or warehouse, or even a uncovered carpark, we know we could gather ramps and make another creative skate space. We would dream of wheelchair sports, coaching, kids sessions, and gathering funding for equipment to make it more accessible to beginners. The minority gender event highlighted the need for more of that here, and so would defeinelty be on the wish list as well as a mens session hosted by local skate legends. The dream being, if we had a place we could give access to any community groups who wanted to use it to host sessions too. And also toilets and lights please. We’re hoping to have another event or skate jam at least before it is demolished. Some examples of skateparks in reused places. Piazza centre huddersfield (old toy shop) skate it yourself, Shredenhams in Bristol, Level 7 Cabot circus carpark Bristol, Pitt street (old sainsburys) Portsmouth. The writing group ‘Get it in Writing’ is part of a larger project called Mindful Manningham which aims to reach people in marginalised groups to form a stronger community within Manningham. The main aims are to foster connection between people and to help people better their mental health through creativity and human contact ‘Get it in Writing’ got its name because so many people with disabilities, additional needs, chronic illness are constantly needing to validate themselves to the outside world, and ‘prove’ that they need assistance. They are told any issues they’re having they must ‘get it in witting’ to access support. Our group aims to turn that on its head and form our own support network and space where we can express ourselves creatively, and talk about ourselves and much as we’d like to, without any external pressure. It’s a place where people are able to bring their stories and experiences and get them in writing without the judgemental presence that Neurotypical and able-bodied spaces can sometimes provide. As well as offering that metaphorical place to express themselves we also have a literal space where people can come, access a warm space, and hang out for a couple of hours. We’re incredibly flexible when it comes to what people want and need, and it’s deeply important to us that people feel able to express those desires, which they may not feel able to do elsewhere. The Writing Group specifically started at the end of April this year, though I’ve been doing workshops at Bradford New Church since September last year. The workshops as a whole started because someone I had previously worked with thought I would be a good choice to come into the community and run some craft workshops. Over the months those developed and I’ve been able to work with so many different members of the community and see what the people are actually wanting. With the success of the workshops Mind the Gap asked me if I would like to run writing workshops for adults with learning disabilities and/or autism and I said absolutely! I think as a whole a lot of creative workshops/outreach is either aimed at children or rich people. That’s all well and good but that leaves a lot of left over groups. Money is a huge barrier for people so all of the workshops I offer are free to attend, and usually whenever I apply for funding that is an element I will not budge on. Everyone should be able to access creativity, not just those with disposable income. I’ve also seen that some people seem to carry a certain amount of shame/embarrassment when it comes to being creative, and see it as childish. If I can help dismantle that idea in any way then I have played my part. Creativity is intrinsic to the human experience, and doesn’t stop as soon as you turn 18. It is a universal experience that disabled and neurodivergent people feel othered by society, and that there isn’t always a place they can fit in and be themselves. Get it in Writing is not only a place that accepts them but is directly built for them and grows with each new member. It absolutely has, though I’m not really sure how to explain it. It’s almost like seeing the city as a living ecosystem, with each element feeding into one another. Everything is linked People in Bradford have a lot of pride for where they’re from, even if in the same breath they also insult it. I think Bradford 2025 as a whole has also helped to show how much public spaces can be utilised in bringing people together, and just how important those spaces are. With costs of living rising and a culture of anxiety sometimes we just need to have places where we can exist with other people and not have it cost anything. Bradford New Church is absolutely one of those spaces Bradford is a well aged sofa. Perhaps it’s not perfect, but it’s comfortable, dependable, and will always be there. My friend once said ‘to work with community you have to meet them where they are’ and I wholeheartedly agree with that. A lot of the people who come to the space are people who may not have even realised this was something they needed, and if it was just advertised on a poster would have ignored it. To work in community you need to be consistent, you need to be there, and you need to be patient. There will always be some people who come from day one and are enthusiastic, but some of the biggest victories are when someone you’ve seen for months walking by actually sits by you finally and talks So many funders focus on having a tangible ‘output’. A graph where you can show how many people came, how long they spent there - I have seen some of the most ridiculous questions on those feedback forms. But actually building community is much messier than that and isn’t something you can put a number to. Community is walking in and someone making a tea for you automatically. Community is someone smiling and talking waving to you across the street. Community is existing together as a live being, and not just coming in to do a service I try to keep myself as an active part of the community besides running workshops and will check on and talk to people outside of sessions. Seems a bit silly to help build a community and then not to be a part of it I’m really hoping that with more funding and time we’re able to make the space more accessible for people with mobility issues. We’ve already been able to get a temporary ramp but hopefully we’ll be able to get something sturdier for more heavy duty mobility aids My hope is that we’re able to carry on with the group because it has clearly been helpful and needed. With Bradford 2025 we’ve had the chance to create many different spaces and groups for people, but we need to make sure it continues into 2026 without the ‘City of Culture’ tagline carrying us. Unfortunately in the creative world things aren’t just as simple as people wanting something to continue so it will, but I am optimistic about the future

Today is the deadline for issue #13! We are very much looking forward to launching the next edition at the Bradford Zine Fair amongst friends and other wonderful zine makers. Join us!

The launch of The Magpie Retrospective will take place on Saturday, 5th April from 3 to 5pm. Join us at The Ginnel (next to 1 Wilmer Road, BD9 4RX)! We invite old and new magpies to share their contributions in person in this very informal gathering.

Call out for Issue #12! We are very excited to be launching this next edition at the BD9 Lister Art Trail in April, as part of the community exhibition, celebrating new and past issues of The Magpie.