SINCE opening in November 2021, Avoniel Leisure Centre in East Belfast is quickly becoming the number one destination within the city for field sports training.
With a wide variety of modern facilities including seven 3G pitches and a covered 240 seater sports pavilion, Avoniel is more than equipped to meet the needs of most sporting clubs across Belfast.
General Manager David Miller explained how the facilities are benefitting the community in East Belfast and beyond.
“We have taken a three-pronged approach to what the centre offers,” he said.
“We have our outdoor sports provision and internally, we have our group exercise and community engagement facilities that we focus on a daily and weekly basis. We also have two high-spec meeting rooms aimed at the business community which we are looking forward to welcoming in over the next few weeks and months.
“We have been very clear about what we are and where we are within East Belfast. What we have done is that we have really tried to engage the local schools within the area, local community groups, some mental health groups and we also have a very focused campaign around Belfast as a whole, but very specifically to East Belfast and to Avoniel around our Health Wise group.
“That is about focusing on our older user and ensuring that we provide something which is bespoke and of use to the people within East Belfast that would require a service like that.”
Outdoor sport forms a huge part of the Better brand and GLL, the social enterprise tasked with managing Belfast City Council’s leisure facilities, are committed to developing that across the city.
“Both here and at Brook, we have really focused on what we can do with our outdoor space,” David continued.
“Other centres within the Better brand in Belfast have outdoor sports provision within that, but we have seven pitches here, we have our full-sized pitch which can be used for intermediate football matches. We have then got three covered five-a-sides, two uncovered five-a-sides and a seven-a-side pitch which is very rare within Belfast.
“Football has probably been the biggest utiliser of our provision. However, we have had others within the pitch elements as well. We run Danderball which is for our older clientele and is effectively walking football.
“We have had tag rugby here, we have had boxing and we are looking to grow that over the next few weeks and months as we try and utilise the space for other sports.”
David said that Avoniel has two unique selling points. The first being the outdoor sport provision and the second being the business element within the centre.
“Our meeting rooms are very high-spec AV. They can be utilised for meetings, business events of any description and we are very keen to engage the local business community as well to utilise these and see what we have on offer.”
To find out more about Avoniel and the other Better facilites across Belfast, visit the Better website.
