Antrim and Newtownabbey·LDP 2030 Plan Strategy (adopted 2025)·Page 181·8.26
Intensive Sports Facilities
Intensive sports facilities (purpose-built resources for activities like stadia, sports halls, leisure centres, swimming pools) must be located within settlements to maximise use of existing infrastructure, given their potentially significant impacts on sustainability, amenity, and environmental issues such as floodlighting.
An intensive sports facility is a purpose built or outdoor resource which facilitates one or more activity fundamental to maintaining individual health and fitness. This may include stadia, sports halls, leisure centres, swimming pools, and other indoor (and outdoor) sports facilities. The precise location of such facilities can be contentious, and by their very nature and scale can give rise to particularly complex planning considerations such as impact on sustainability issues and amenity, for example, through floodlighting. Such facilities shall be located within settlements in order to maximise the use of existing infrastructure.
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