August 2009
The UK’s No 1 fitness industry magazine
Budget gyms go 24-7
Call for VAT reduction on fit provisions By Mary Ferguson THE GOVERNMENT has been urged to do more to help employers get their workforces active by cutting tax to make gym memberships more appealing. An influential think tank has called for a VAT reduction on physical activity provisions – including fitness facilities – in a bid to tackle the health problems of the nation. It is also pushing for the Government to provide matched funding for businesses prepared to spend money on encouraging employees to exercise. In a new report from The Public Health Commission, called We’re All in this Together, recommendations have been made to reposition physical activity as a healthcare provision. This would mean businesses – and employees – could pay less for gym memberships, which at the moment are taxable as ‘benefits in kind’. Members of the commission included representatives from all areas of health including supermarket giants Asda and Tesco and the director of the British Nutrition Foundation. Fred Turok, chairman of the Fitness Industry Association, represented the gym sector. He told Workout: “There are two ele-
ments to what the commission is proposing. The first is about reducing VAT on gym membership. The second is to do with removing the tax liability from employers who incentivise their employees to exercise and keep fit, rather than penalise them by treating gym membership for example, as a benefit in kind. “The most important thing though is that the report recommends repositioning physical activity as healthcare provision, reflecting how far the industry has come in terms of being valued for our contribution to the health of the nation. “This would be a big step towards gyms being considered a viable option by healthcare professionals as an alternative to pills and the knife.” The Public Health Commission was chaired by Dave Lewis, chairman of Unilever, and according to Fred, will continue to act as an advisory committee to Government. He added: “The commission is about getting the next one million people a day through the doors and using our industry expertise to double our current influence on the nation’s health. Ultimately we want the industry to be seen as partners to the local PCTs, not just suppliers of services.”
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Personal trainer Nyisha Jordan was one of the lucky fitness professionals chosen to model in this year’s Escape journal. The equipment providers launched a nationwide competition to find four ‘faces of fitness’ and from hundreds of entries, 20 were selected to attend a casting session at the Reebok Club in London. The final four – which also included Sophie Baxter, Simon Alebiosu and Daniel Terry – were chosen to appear in the journal. Nyisha works as a personal trainer at Virgin Active in Mayfair after qualifying a year ago. She told Workout: “I’ve always been interested in fitness modelling so I thought entering the competition may provide a kick-start to my career. I think my passion for exercise really helped when it came to striking the right poses.”
A NEW crop of budgetstyle 24-hour gyms is set to open around the UK from the Autumn. Pure gyms, who will charge just £9.99 a month for the first year, will open initially in Manchester and Wolverhampton, with plans to expand throughout the country. There are no contracts but after the first year, membership rises to £15.99 a month, with access to every Pure gym in the country. Clubs will be staffed during the day and at night facilities will be monitored by a realtime CCTV system with voice connections to security staff. There will be no sales team and to keep costs low, all memberships will be processed online. Sunbeds, showers and changing rooms will also be available. The group aims to have up to 20 sites by 2014, each developed at a cost of £850,000 and employing up to a dozen staff. For more on 24-hour gyms, Page 34