The Sandel Centre: A Community Venue Website for Coleraine

In October 2026, Lowe Design launched the new website for The Sandel Centre, a community venue and room hire space in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, with the Skedda booking portal built in and a content system the Centre team can edit themselves.

At a glance

• Client: The Sandel Centre, run by Causeway Voluntary Action Trust
• Location: 6 Knocklynn Road, Coleraine, Northern Ireland
• Project: Website design and build
• Built with: Next.js, Sanity and the Skedda booking portal
• Launched: October 2026
• Live site: sandelcentre.org

The Sandel Centre is owned by Mountsandel Christian Fellowship and run day to day by Causeway Voluntary Action Trust, a registered charity. It hosts meetings, classes, celebrations, children's parties and community groups across six bookable spaces. Ground Coffee and Kitchen is on site, and a community chaplain offers a listening ear every week. Every booking helps fund the charity's work in the local community.

The problem

The Centre had outgrown its old website. The homepage was a few lines of text, and it still named a café that had since been replaced.

The Centre Manager knew exactly what the Centre offered and had written much of it down. Our starting point was one long document covering everything from room sizes and bus times to trustee bios. The job was to turn that into a site people could find their way around.

There were three very different visitors to look after:

• People hiring a room for the first time, who need to see the spaces and how to enquire
• Existing clients, who just want to log in and book
• Local people looking for a group, a free activity or someone to talk to

The approach

Structure first

We sorted every piece of copy into a clear site map before any design started. It covered 37 pages under the simple navigation the client asked for: Home, Room Hire, What's On, Need Support?, Coffee Shop and About. We also planned eight forms, each one sent to the right person.

Calm, premium and easy to use

The brief was premium, calm, plenty of white space and genuinely easy to use. We worked with an off-white base and a deep teal slate, and let the Centre's own photos do the talking. The homepage leads with what people ask about most: free parking, a charity discount, the café and a quick route to the rooms.

Rooms that sell themselves

Each of the six spaces, from the Main Hall to The Eaves, has its own page on a shared template. Size, capacity and what the room is best for sit in the same place every time, so comparing rooms is quick.

Booking built into the site

Existing clients press Book a Room in the header and land on a Manage My Bookings page with the Skedda portal built right in. They can make, view, change or cancel a booking without leaving the Centre's website. New hirers are pointed to a simple enquiry form instead, so nobody gets stuck at a login they don't have yet.

A What's On page that's easy to scan

Every group, whether run by a client or by the church, is laid out the same way: when, where, who it's for and who to contact. Short reviews from groups who use the Centre sit alongside them.

Built so the team can run it

We built the site in Next.js with Sanity as the content system. The team can edit anything themselves, from text and photos to groups and reviews, without waiting on a developer. It works on phones, tablets and desktops.

The result

The new site is now live at sandelcentre.org. It feels like the building: bright, welcoming and easy to get around. Room hire, the weekly programme, the chaplaincy and the café each have a proper home, and existing clients can book from any page.

Questions about this project

Who designed The Sandel Centre website?

Lowe Design, a brand and web design agency based in Coleraine, designed and built The Sandel Centre website, which launched in October 2026.

Can the Sandel Centre team update the website themselves?

Yes. The site runs on Sanity, so the team can change text, photos, groups and reviews without a developer.

How do existing clients book a room at The Sandel Centre?

They press Book a Room on any page and sign in to the Skedda booking portal, which is built into the website.

Planning something similar for your venue, charity or community group? See how we approach web design in Coleraine, read about our work with community and public sector organisations, or see the town centre platform we built for Coleraine Connect. When you're ready, get in touch.