Town celebrates grand opening of Skating Trail
A ribbon-cutting ceremony and special performance by the Stouffville Skating Club helped mark the grand opening of the new Memorial Park Skating Trail at the Mayor and Council’s New Year’s Levee and Skate.
Residents and visitors were invited to enjoy the first official public skate on the trail, which opened to the public on December 14.
“The Memorial Park Skating Trail represents an incredible investment in our community’s future from the federal and provincial governments,” Stouffville Mayor Iain Lovatt says. “We are proud to open this trail and look forward to seeing it become a cherished destination for the entire community.”
The trail was funded through the Community, Culture and Recreation Infrastructure Stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP). The Community, Culture and Recreation Infrastructure Stream supports improvements to cultural and community infrastructure and upgrades to recreational facilities.
Through ICIP, the federal government is contributing $2,230,800, the provincial government is contributing $1,858,814 and the Town of Stouffville is contributing $1,487,386 towards the project. That combined investment of $5.577 million supported the development of the 275-metre, refrigerated and fully-accessible skating trail portion of the project.
“This project not only provides a central, accessible space for winter sport and activity but also creates a year-round recreation space for residents of all ages and abilities,” says Commissioner of Community Services Rob Braid.
The trail will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week and when the ice surface is deemed safe. The trail may close at any time for maintenance, weather conditions or safety concerns. Check posted signs or the Town’s website for updates. The skating trail is unsupervised and participants use it at their own risk. Click here for more information about skate rental and sharpening, code of conduct, skating trail use guidelines and legal disclaimer.
Photos of the grand opening of the new Memorial Park Skating Trail on January 10 courtesy of the Town of Stouffville.
This is great to read, I wish I could see some improvement in the ice rink at Stouffville Museum in Vandorf where I live. Yesterday when walking our dogs in the park we noticed two Rogers trucks by the rink – one person with a snow blower the other on skates with a shovel. I took a couple of pictures as this was not a surprise to see some company maintaining the ice as the town had a masonry company doing it before and it was a waste and unusable as they flooded the ice with snow on it…However, having a brand such as Rogers was a tad surprising.
The ice rink in Vandorf when it is operational (I can count on one hand the number of times in many years) is a good community resource, it does need to maintained properly with people knowledgeable in doing this sort of thing, not a masonry company or Rogers as the ice still has closed signs. Perhaps the town could see it in putting refrigerated and fully-accessible skating rink in this facility and not wasting money by engaging masonry and telecommunications companies such as Rogers to maintain it.
But, this goes along with maintaining our roads by replacing little sections or having some company with a tar wand try to fill cracks when the roads should be replaced, the company “played” for a few hours as it was impossible to fill the number of cracks and only for us to see the tar peel off. the roads here are terrible considering that we were told by someone in the last election that we pay some of the highest property taxes in the area.
Is it any question that the public questions the credibility and intent of government?