A NEW skate park is being built thanks to a £25,000 Government grant. The park, which will be built near the Belhus Park Leisure Centre in Aveley, is costing £50,000 in total.

The brainchild of the Aveley Village Community Forum, it already has £22,000 from the Thurrock landfill tax credit scheme and £1,000 each from the Aveley Village forum, the South Ockendon Forum and Belhus Leisure Centre. Construction work is likely to start early in the new year.

Alan Field, chairman of the Aveley Village Community Forum said: "There is a real need for this. There have been a lot of nuisance problems with youngsters and their skateboards around the area. They are not nasty kids but have got nowhere else to go. This gives them somewhere to go and gives them some activity.

"Now when they are playing on the pavements where they could injure elderly people or young children, they can't say they have got nowhere else to go. "Youngsters have been expressing an interest in a skate park for some years and that interest still seems strong now. So I think it will be well used.

"It will be far enough away from buildings so not to cause noise and disturbance but near enough to South Ockendon for youngsters from there to be able to go too."

Colin Churchman, deputy mayor and Conservative councillor for Aveley and Uplands, gave his backing to the project.

He said: "Any funding for Aveley is good funding. We need a lot of things in Aveley. We have been a dumping ground for London and it is time we had something put in.

"We do have problems with children because there isn't enough to do. So whatever we can do is going to be a bonus for them."

The money comes as part of the Living Spaces programme.

ODPM minister Phil Hope said: "Living Spaces is all about giving people more power to improve their quality of life. Too often local neighbourhood issues that really matter to people -- dirty streets, broken swings, neglected parks -- have been dismissed as a trivial concern but they in fact determine how we feel about the places we live.

"Living Spaces has enabled people to take control of their surroundings and improve their local environment to create cleaner, safer, greener neighbourhoods."