Mosaics for skate park

The sand break wall at the Umina Beach Skate Park will soon be transformed into a mosaic artwork.

Local community groups have been working with Tanya Darwin, a local artist, on crafting a mosaics to cover and decorate the concrete wall.

The community project aims to beautify the wall with graffiti resistant mosaic sheets, to enhance its use as a seating area and to provide an area to promote positive community messages.

This project is part of a wider community initiative raising community safety and facilitating information on various issues affecting young people on the Peninsula.

The project is supported by Gosford Council, the Premiers Department, the Peninsula Community Drug Action Team, the Umina Beach Community Awareness and Referral agency.

Gosford Council's public space officer Ms Fiona Miller said it was just one of many projects being conducted in the Umina area.

"The skate park has become a focus for community initiatives, in particular community safety and drug and alcohol awareness," Ms Miller said.

"The wall gives us a fun and colourful way to distribute community safety messages and promote the positive work of our local community groups."

Nearly eight local groups have worked on individual panels of the wall, and they are now complete.

"The Umina Beach Lifesavers for example have made a section and have decorated it with a beach theme, and the Mingaletta aboriginal group and have used the opportunity to display some aboriginal artwork," Ms Miller said.

"When it's finished it will be quite amazing because it will be a huge mixture of diverse Australian culture.

"The groups are so proud of their work, they decided to hold an exhibition and showcase the mosaic panels to the wider community before they were finally fixed to the break wall," Ms Miller said.

An exhibition was held from Friday, October 1, to Sunday, October 3, at the Umina Library.

"The mosaic wall will be fixed permanently to the sand break at the skate park in the coming months."

E-mail, September 27 Alison Nolan, Gosford Council