Major flood at The Source skate park

Firefighters at The Source skate park pumping water after a flood in the basement. Photo by Eddie Mitchell SUS-170316-095822001

The popular skate park shut for the day while crews pumped out enough water to fill five Olympic swimming pools from the basement after a mater main pipe burst.

It is still unknown where the leak was but owner Richard Moore hopes they will be open today after having to cancel a birthday party yesterday.

“We lost some business, we had a birthday party booked which we had to cancel, which was a shame and a bit gutted about that, having to reschedule a birthday party, but there was nothing we could do,” he said.

Firefighters at The Source skate park pumping water after a flood in the basement. Photo by Eddie Mitchell SUS-170316-095838001

“Hopefully we are open today but it depends on what happened this morning, whether we can find where the leak is.”

East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service was called at around 1pm after the daily inspection of the basement pump found it was not working with it five feet deep in water.

The water supply for the town runs underneath the skate park so millions of litres of water flooded into the basement, making it impossible to fix without it being pumped out.

Fire crews managed to pump it down the beach with help from a specialist fire crew from Brighton.

The Source's flooded basement. Photo by Richard Moore SUS-170316-100824001

“We had a huge river of water running in to the sea, it was crazy,” Mr Moore said.

The actual skate park is unaffected as the flood was underneath it but management were forced to close it due to the heavy machinery passing through and for general health and safety reasons.

Firefighters were there until 2am this morning pumping water out of the basement but there is still water in there and efforts are being made to find the source of the leak.

“Nobody knows where it’s coming from, it could be coming from somewhere we can’t see,” Mr Moore said.

Firefighters at The Source skate park pumping water after a flood in the basement. Photo by Eddie Mitchell SUS-170316-095806001

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