April 2009
The UK’s No 1 fitness industry magazine
WorkOut calls for fairer deal for owners Exclusive by Nicola Hyde AN MP is backing WorkOut’s new campaign to win a fairer deal on VAT for thousands of independent gym owners all over the UK. WorkOut has been inundated with letters and emails from readers, complaining they don’t get the same tax breaks as local authority-controlled or charitable trust health clubs. Currently, a member of a privatelyowned gym has to pay 15 per cent VAT on their membership – while memberships at council-run facilities are VAT-free. And independents claim while they have to fork out thousands in business rates, council and trust-run gyms get heavy subsidies, with many getting grants for new kit, refurbishment and improvements. Independents insist this gives their rivals the upper hand and now an MP has taken up the case of one operator who claims he can’t compete against a trust-run gym which is less than a mile away. South Yorkshire MP Jeff Ennis has brokered talks between Ian Williams, of Empress Health Club in Mexborough and Stephen Timms, the financial secretary to the treasury. Mr Ennis said “It’s a difficult issue to
resolve to everybody’s satisfaction because of the problem we have got in terms of difference between a gym running as a charitable status, a council-run facility, a small independently-owned and then the big chains. We need to look at some kind of mechanism to combat this.” But, during the meeting, Stephen Timms revealed the government cannot afford to lose the billions of pounds of income it receives from VAT payments and dismissed the request. The MP added: “His feeling was if we scrapped VAT payments for independent gyms then we would be subsidising a commercially successful business, giving some sort of precedent for other businesses. “I think the crux of the problem is how to differentiate between the big guys. There should be some mechanism that allows a cut-off point to make allowances for the small operators as opposed to chains who really do seem to have quite high profit lines. “The key is to find some sort of way to determine how we can help the small independents and if they have any suggestions I would be happy to hear from them.” I Turn to Page 3 for more
No 187 £3
Recession not hitting gym stats
Celebrity personal trainer Mark Anthony has been whipping 80’s pop stars into a shape for a new TV series. Mark worked with performers including Mike Nolan and Cheryl Baker to help them slim down for Pop Goes The Band, which also features Cleopatra, Dollar and boy band 911. Mark – who has also trained Jordan and Billie Piper – helped transform the stars for the show using his ‘Six Week Body Plan’.
GYM memberships are not being affected by the recession, according to the results of a recent survey. Research has shown that for existing gym members, spend is set to remain stable throughout 2009, with almost two thirds of consumers saying they expect expenditure to be the same as last year and 19 per cent saying they expected to pay more. But there is little movement from nongym members – only five per cent who did not have gym membership in 2008 said they would join in 2009. Nunwood, the customer and market insight agency, asked a nationwide sample of 1,000 if they thought they would spend more, the same or less on gym membership in 2009 compared to 2008. Senior analyst Lucy Parry said: “People who are already committed to gym membership are clearly not sacrificing the ab crunch in the credit crunch. But persuading new people to join is more difficult – with the vast majority of nonmembers likely to stay out of the gym in 2009.”