Warning over Quantum Leap climbers
Tuesday 22nd June 2010, 10:59AM BST.
Shrewsbury’s landmark Quantum Leap sculpture has been called a health hazard after youths were caught climbing the 40ft concrete structure.
Richard Thompson, from Netley Road, Meole Brace, Shrewsbury, said he was enjoying a drink outside the nearby Shrewsbury Hotel at 5pm on Sunday when he saw three teenagers trying to climb Quantum Leap, which was built to mark thebicentenary of Charles Darwin
He managed to capture their stunt on his camera but said he feared for their safety adding it was only a matter of time before someone was seriously hurt by copying them.
Shropshire Council today urged people not to climb the structure, which was officially opened last October in the Mardol Quay Gardens, and said it was monitored by CCTV.
Mr Thompson said: “The temptation is there and children are daredevils so they are bound to try and climb it.
“The youngsters were just sitting around at the bottom of the sculpture to start with and then they started to climb it.
“They got about 20ft above the ground and were about half way up the sculpture.
“If they had fallen off they would have been seriously hurt, they could have been paralysed or even killed.”
The £450,000 piece of art is made from locally quarried stone as geology was Darwin’s key interest during his early life in Shrewsbury. Its design represents his ideas and his impact on the scientific world and cost taxpayers about £300,000.
It was officially opened by Darwin’s great, great grandson Randal Keynes and it sits within a “geo-garden” near the River Severn.
George Candler, assistant director for culture and leisure at Shropshire Council, said: “Shropshire Council would strongly urge that no member of the public attempts to climb the Quantum Leap structure.
“There is signage around the area requesting that people refrain from doing this, monitoring is also regularly undertaken via the CCTV network and with the town centre warden. As a result of this we will continue to monitor the situation.”
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Lets see if someone falls off it then and seriously hurts themselves. The council will have to take it down and will be so embarressed for wasting our money on it.
Oh yes thats where alot of our councils money was wasted Mr Osborne…. ON CONCRETE.
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And all stand up who said this was going to happen.Whether it would the fault of the person climbing or not these things should always be a factor before they build such rubbish.
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That’s one giant leap for mankind… and one total waste of money for Shropshire Council.
Best keep saying your prayers in that meeting chamber.
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They are trying to get a better view of the 1970′s variety performance acts put on by theatre severn.
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I do hope they fall off and remove themselves and potential offspring from the gene pool. Darwinian evolution at its best.
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why? because they are children doing what children do, its not exactly playing on traintracks, i happen to know the culprits here and granted they could have judged the situation better and stay at the bottom or even better not have climbed it at all, but seriously you want them to fall and die?
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The quantum Leap is a piece of art and should be respected as such.
Parents need to take responsability for thier kids for once. Obviouselly the parents of these childeren dont care if they get hurt
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obviously your parents didn’t care because if they did they would have taught you how to spell
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As an ex-pat Salopian it’s good to be able to see one small piece of Shropshire whenever I choose courtesy the webcams on top of Theatre Severn, and I for one like Quantum Leap. Perhaps a few more publicly accesible webcams would improve awareness of Shropshire’s top attractions?
As for the kids caught on camera perhaps tehy were about to make a “quantum leap” of their own, which would be poetic justice or, perhaps Darwinism in action and improving the gene pool!!
It’s sad we live in a society where the immediate reaction is that it’s the sculpture at fault – where were the parents?
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where were the parents, why does everybody think they are in the wrong, they are kids its what they do and it is stupidly hard to fall of a structure such as this
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Kids doing what kids do best. If you’re going to build a massive concrete ladder, kids are going to want to climb it.
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Its not just kids though is it?
Go into town on a Friday and Saturday night and see the adults climbing it!
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Shock horror! Youthful primates go climbing! Whatever next… perhaps someone should inform the Natural History Museum?
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How has the statue of Darwin managed to get so many traffic cones on his head over many decades?
By someone climbing up and putting them there of course.
If anyone gets hurt it would be the same as climbing a tree,their own responsibility.
Quantum Leap is one of the better things to happen in Shrewsbury for a long time.
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The idiots who commissioned this monstrosity must have known that it would be abused in this way. For grossly neglecting the health and safety issues, as well as wasting vast sums of public money, they should be made to pay out any compensation claims from their own pockets.
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Did the person who took the photo, have the permission of the children’s parents to do so?
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They were in a public place. You don’t need permission to take photos in a public place.
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Oh well at least some people are finding a use for it then.Maybe it wasn’t a TOTAL waste of money.
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Hey, if they fall off and kill themselves, that’s just evolution in action.
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I’m with Jake on this one – it is a big ladder, I quite fancy climbing it myself and I am 48! I think maybe they could charge for climbing and supply harnesses or crash mats underneath!
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Im with you squirrel, might have a crack at it tonight after ive had a few, see if i can make the river if i jump. By the way.. why do squirrels swim on their backs???…
To keep their nuts dry!
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Survival of the fittest in action – Darwin would be proud !
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What do the council expect when they create something like this? It’s like building a new playground, but for drunk adults on a Saturday night! The person who designed this MUST have anticipated this would happen!!
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look, I’m 17 i can climb a goddamn sculpture without my parents permission, amd anyway, we weren’t in any danger.
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If this had a Facebook style “like” button, I’d have clicked it :-)
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Firstly, you were in danger, if you do not know how much damage you would do to yourself falling 20 feet onto a hard surface then you do need to be supervised so maybe you should ask your parents for permission
Secondly, I really dont care if you injure or maim yourself but i do object to paying taxes into the health service because people like you think you can do whatever you want to do. You cant, so grow up.
(note to editor, The sculpure might be a safety hazard (due to inadaquate control measure being in place) but it not a health hazard as you reported it to be.
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i am in full control of my limbs and i can guarantee you i was nowhere close to the edge of the sculpture, you sir, really need to get a life and stop commenting on stupid shropshire star articles.
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Ok Mr Salopian. Next time I go to climb up it, I’ll phone my mother beforehand and inform her of my intentions. If she says no then I guess I’ll just have to find another way to enjoy life, perhaps I should turn to crime instead?
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My best friend is up there <3
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Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I can’t say i blame the ‘Youthful primates’ (David Jones) for climbing this disgusting piece of so called ‘art’. It is frankly disgusting and doesn’t really symbolise Darwin. £300,000 of tax money went on all of this concrete, it would have been far more useful filling in potholes around Shropshire!
Tim Davies – ‘obviously their parents don’t care if they get hurt’. Right, I guess all parents should have tracking devices on their children? What a fickle and pathetic statement to make, because i’m sure you know if their parents are atrocious at parenting or brilliant at it. You make yourself look worse than these three teens having fun.
John – So basically they deserved to die for being a bit silly and climbing this sculpture? Reading into that, you’re stating that they’re inferior, that’s similar to what the Nazis would have said about the ‘Aryan’ race, ‘improving the gene pool’.
So, overall I am disgusted in this story being published as the Sloppy woeful Star have not even asked permission of these teenagers (i know this) and has found it in their place to publish such a pedantic and trivial story thus proving how poor of a paper it is. You lot that come on here and judge these three teens for doing what teens do really need to look at your live’s and wonder how great they really are that you must go to the extent of judging others before you know them. To be honest, i’d rather these teens were doing this than sat round the lovely Ditherington or town of Shrewsbury drinking and causing fights.
Its just typical folk from Shrewsbury, that believe they have the right to point their finger and make the unjustifiable judgement and throw out their woeful attempts to insult the youths below them. Not look at a way of stopping this, but to sit there and pass a judgement.
I therefore come to the conclusion, that the people i have mentioned on this thread are pathetic and must live lonely lives. You’re not actually any better than anyone else so get your heads out of your ****! Or, i do apologise,I guess if you’re in that perfect ‘Gene-pool’ catagory then you may keep them there!
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Oh dear – by mentioning the Nazis, you inadvertently invoked Godwin’s Law and therefore you lose, by default!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
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Brilliant … I mentioned them as what he said was exactly what the person above had stated ..
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Oh do give up moaning, i suppose you work for the council?
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Darren, I am a student. Once again. Assuming things and once again, being wrong.
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Nat…. The aesthetics of an excellent , interesting and apt sculpture are obviously incomprehensible to you but wer’e not all philistines and some folk in this town can appreciate a good example of public art.
I always had reservations about the position of the sculpture in terms of the rather hidden nature of this area and that I feel the trees around it will cause shading and potential future problems with pollution and algae.
It is a wonderful piece of engineering and a technical acheivement with a complicated material to get right but typical of Shrewsbury has an unconfident and regrettably poor relationship to it’s surroundings.
Hopefully the CCTV camera can identify the foolish people who choose to treat it with the contempt that is, as I have previously said, often applied to the Darwin statue in front of the library.
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I know the three people and I can assure you that they’re everything but what has been dished at them on this thread. They’re very intelligent individuals who like myself, dislike this sculpture and decided to climb it.
Fair enough, I accept that people like and I can see why as it stands for something personal to Shrewsbury.
My whole point was that what has been dished out and stated in this thread has been completely unfair to the individuals on the sculpture.
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ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! where did you pull that lot up from ” wonderful piece of engineering” you must have it confused with wembley stadium love!
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Just wait for it to cost another £100k to fence it off
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Just thought id spark off another argument! I was stuck in massive delays in Frankwell on sunday, and why???? so the council can spend god knows how many thousands on painting huge red boxes by all the traffic lights for cyclists!!!?? jesus christ! has this town gone mad! mind you, double time for the workmen! no wonder they dragged it out! i would have!
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So it has now become a £450k climbing frame as well as being an obvious waste of cash. Just how much is the cctv monitoring costing the tax payer. But don’t worry, the council will claw back the cash by not buying anymore sandwiches.
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What did you expect kids to do with a piece of crap concrete?
To be fair you’re lucky, in Telford it would have been torn down by residents for something useful like block paving by now!
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To be brutally honest, I agree with some people here. I am blaming nobody but the council for this…they waste thousands on (quite frankly) a crappy little statue. Why wasn’t the money used for more important things, like filling the pot holes by Sainsbury’s caused by the snow earlier this year? Clearly investing in some stupid little statue is more important, especially when money is so tight at this moment of time.
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At least Shrewsbury can afford it ;D
And anyway, Gene pool person is so narrow minded! I don’t want kids anyway! Vile things. I can live a happy child free life without falling off a damn sculpture.
And by the way, we weren’t “caught”.
We climbed up a sculpture that looks like a giant fish skeleton, felt a sense of achievement, got down, and walked away. Later to find we got our own little photo shoot to remember our achievement.
PS, yes, it looks like a damn fish skeleton, If it’s to do with Darwin you should of built a MONKEY. Idiots.
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Were those creatures monkeys that had climbed up the Quantum Leap?
They seemed to have evolved to wearing clothes but not much more.
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At the end of the day I’m glad I climbed up the fish skeleton. (Let’s face it here, it really does look like the ribs/vertebrae of a fish) When we were walking past it we had a choice, either continue on our merry way or stop, climb, admire and go. Naturally we chose the last option because it was fun. I’d rather live my life doing fun things, even if they are as small as climbing up a concrete sculpture in this case, than be the person who goes past all these opportunities to enjoy themselves and never takes them because when it comes down to it, it’s the people who are like that who are boring, uninteresting and practically all the same. Your actions develop who you are as person, If you take no action then you end up having no character. To all those who feel the need to spend their lives complaining because other people are enjoying theirs, I take pity on you, you clearly are living a dull life.
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ShrewsburySaviour would you rather the work on the road was during the week,use a little sense!
Waste of Money-think you will find pot holes developed after Quantum Leap was completed,so where does that leave your ridiculous comments.Seems only Star readers are against this fantastic piece of public art that will be with us for a long time,glad there are some people with real vision in Shrewsbury!
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