Fair Rates for Fitness
It is time our sector was treated like the solution we are. We need your voice.
Every day, we see the benefits. Helping someone to regain their mobility, helping members build a community. A gym/fitness club is a building full of people improving and prolonging their life. Each one could be an NHS appointment avoided.
Gyms and health clubs don’t just sell memberships. We keep people well. We reduce heart disease, ease anxiety, cut absenteeism, and build resilience. When our industry thrives, the NHS breathes more easily. When a facility closes, that pressure shifts straight back onto the state.
So why are our clubs and gyms still subjected to these rates like any other leisure venue?
We are quiet neighbours, open early, delivering preventative health solutions. But when it comes to business rates, that good is not recognised. Many of us also compete against subsidised council centres. That is not a level playing field.
At a time where successive governments have vowed to combat the mental health crisis and the decline in public fitness, it makes no sense to ignore and neglect.
The government has a choice: recognise fitness as health infrastructure, or risk more closures, more preventable illness, and higher public costs.
That’s why we at Ashbourne Membership Management are proud to be backing the Gym Owners Forum led campaign, Fair Rates for Fitness, and we want you to join us.
Visit fairratesforfitness.com and email your MP today. It takes two minutes. Tell them what we in the fitness industry already know. That gyms and fitness clubs reduce NHS demand, and we deserve fair rates for the goods we provide every day.