£8m project showcased

The new look Avoniel has been officially opened at an event showcasing the redeveloped leisure site in east Belfast.The £8m transformation will address the lack of 3G pitches in the area, while also providing flexible indoor space for the community. It is the fifth of seven new and upgraded centres that make up Belfast City Council’s £105m Leisure Transformation Programme (LTP).New facilities at Avoniel include an intermediate standard 3G football pitch, 240 covered seats for spectators, three covered and two uncovered 3G five-a-side pitches, an outdoor 3G seven-a-side pitch, multi-purpose rooms, meeting rooms and changing facilities.Avoniel will be run by GLL, the social enterprise which operates all Belfast City Council’s leisure centres under the ‘Better’ brand.The Irish FA hosted ‘Fanzone’ sessions with inflatables, skills stations and practice matches, as well as demonstrations featuring its disability football programme, danderball for seniors and the Shooting Stars programme for primary school girls. Ulster Rugby and Irish Boxing also held sessions for local schools, with participants moving between sport stations at intervals to try out each sport.The opening of Avoniel follows the opening of Olympia in 2017, Lisnasharragh and Brook in 2019 and Andersonstown in 2020 as part of the LTP. An upgrade to Templemore Baths is due to be completed in autumn 2022, while the final LTP project will see a new leisure centre built at the Girdwood Community Hub site in north Belfast, with work due to get underway in 2022.