Richmond Aquatic Centre is the local community hub on Salisbury Road in Richmond, bringing together a fitness centre, group fitness classes, a variety of pools and kids' programmes for just about every occasion. Operated by Community Leisure Management (CLM), it's built around a simple idea: a great place for the whole family to get fit and improve health and wellbeing, whether that means early laps, a swim lesson or a Friday night wave session.
The pools are the centrepiece. Swimmers can check a live online availability timetable before they leave home — green means plenty of space, yellow means kind of busy but still room, red means closed or fully booked — and there's a 55°C sauna for the warm-down afterwards. Families time their visits around the Waves sessions, when hire boards, tubes and inflatables come out, and Friday nights bring the Wave Rave.
Out of the water there's a full fitness centre with 24-hour access for full members, a timetable of group fitness classes, aqua fitness in the pool, a dedicated HYROX Training Club and an EVOLT 360 body scanner for tracking progress. The Legends programme rounds out the schedule.
For kids, the SwimMagic swim school runs lessons in the Learn to Swim area, the Tasman Magic Academy swim club is based on site, and pool parties and an activity trailer extend the fun beyond the water. A Poolside Cafe and on-site shop cover the coffee, snacks and forgotten gear, and a virtual tour lets first-timers look around before they arrive.
On Salisbury Road in Richmond, Richmond Aquatic Centre does an unusual thing well: it manages to be several different places at once. Early in the morning it belongs to the lap swimmers and the gym crowd; by mid-afternoon it's swim-school territory; on Friday nights the pool turns into a wave-fuelled rave. Underneath it all it is what its operators, Community Leisure Management (CLM), describe as a local community hub — a fitness centre, group fitness classes, a variety of pools and kids' programmes for every occasion, all pitched at helping the whole family get fit and stay well.
The pools are the heart of the facility, and the centre is unusually transparent about how busy they get. A live availability timetable on the website gives a colour-coded snapshot of lane space in real time — green means lots of space, yellow means kind of busy but there's still room, and red means the pool is closed or fully booked, with the number of free lanes shown where relevant. For anyone who has ever driven across town only to find every lane taken, it's a genuinely handy tool.
Between swims there's a sauna to retreat to, heated to a toasty 55°C. And when the kids want chaos rather than calm, the Waves sessions deliver: weekday afternoons from 4pm to 6pm, then 11am to 4pm across weekends, public holidays and school holidays, with a range of hire boards, tubes and inflatables on offer. Friday nights crank things up further with the Wave Rave from 7pm to 9pm — sessions set to return on February 13th, 2026. One detail regulars know well: pools shut 15 minutes before the centre's stated closing time, so build that into your swim.
The fitness centre opens 5.30am to 9pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 5pm on weekends, with 24-hour access included in full memberships. Group fitness classes run to a published timetable, aqua fitness takes the workout into the water, and there's a dedicated HYROX Training Club for the functional-fitness faithful. An EVOLT 360 body scanner is available for tracking body composition, and the Legends programme rounds out the schedule. Note that the gym is unstaffed from 8pm to 9pm Monday to Thursday and 7pm to 9pm on Fridays.
Learn-to-swim runs under the SwimMagic banner in a dedicated Learn to Swim area, where the accessible changing room is currently getting upgrade works, expected to be complete by the end of October. Swimmers who catch the bug can graduate to the Tasman Magic Academy, the swim club based at the centre and currently adding to its coaching team. Beyond lessons there are kids' programmes for every occasion, bookable pool parties, and an activity trailer available for bookings.
The Poolside Cafe keeps hours that match the rhythm of the place — 8.30am to 4.30pm on weekdays, 6pm to 9pm on Friday evenings, and 9am to 4pm on weekends — with an on-site shop for anything you forgot. If you're new, take the virtual tour on the centre's website and have a look around before your first visit.
The centre is also visibly woven into local life: each year it donates facility passes to community events and fundraisers, and it holds a long-standing partnership with Nelson Netball, one of the region's largest sporting organisations.
Pool hours are 5.30am to 9pm Monday to Thursday, 5.30am to 7pm on Friday (with the Wave Rave following), and 8am to 6pm on weekends. You can reach the centre on 03 543 9755, and its Facebook page carries the latest facility news. Whether you come for the laps, the lessons, the sauna or the rave, Richmond Aquatic Centre's trick is that it doesn't make you choose.