This £38m sporting and leisure facility is a legacy of the 2012 Olympics, opening in 2013 and being NI’s only Olympic sized 50m swimming pool. Serving the community and visitors in and around Bangor, the centre is managed by Serco on behalf of the local Northern Community Leisure Trust and was opened by Princess Anne.
In 2019, 1.3m people visited Aurora, a combination of residents (many of whom had taken membership) and visitors.
Bangor Aurora has been built to the latest specifications, offering an excellent choice of activities and facilities. This includes relaxed leisure and play with water flumes, children’s soft adventure play area as well as a crèche, through to a state of the art gym, workout classes, health suite, sports hall, squash courts and an outdoor floodlit synthetic grass pitch for matches and training. Facilities for those with disabilities include hoists, ever ready staff and a buddy card system enabling disabled visitors to bring a helping hand for free.
The Trust is committed to contributing to the Council’s ‘Big Plan’ which is that everyone in Ards and North Down enjoys good health and well being, by providing the widest possible range of opportunities for participation in physical activity, so that more people become more active more often.
There is huge attention to detail here. Partly because energy is such a big cost, systems are in place to monitor and manage it. There’s a Combined Heat and Power scheme for the building, generating 70% of energy needs; sensors; rainwater collection; daily monitoring of gas, electricity and water. Aurora has doubled its recycling in 2018/19, halving landfill.
The café offers healthy and vegan menu options, manages it waste, uses local suppliers and a baker for the tray bakes and has eliminated plastic cups and cutlery, now using wooden recyclable cutlery. There’s electric car charging on site and staff encouraged to bike to work. Overseeing all these systems and processes is Aurora’s “green team”, and all staff are trained in and carry out environmentally sound practices.
Open 6.00 in the morning ‘til late. Check out the website for facilities, training and class times.
The Green Tourism programme was funded by the Council’s Recycling Community Investment Fund - a scheme which is powered by the recycling efforts of local residents and businesses. Thanks to an increased amount of recycling by the local community, almost £15M has been saved in landfill costs since the programme’s inception. These savings have allowed the Council to create the RCIF which supports new and existing environmentally friendly initiatives.
