INTERVIEW JUSTIN MCDONELL
“Our core customer is really the 18- to 32-year-old who loves going to the gym and is very engaged with fitness”
What does all this mean for franchisees? Raising standards does of course require investment from franchisees. In many cases, our franchisees are onboard with our vision and willing to invest to upgrade their facilities; we have a lot of good, engaged, invested franchisees with whom we will take the brand forward. But in a few cases, we’re buying clubs back to run them corporately. We’re currently in the process of acquiring eight clubs. We’ll remodel around 70 clubs this calendar year and by December, will have a network where our product is consistently at the level we expect. Going forward, we’re also putting a clear refresh cycle in place. Every ve years, clubs will need to replace their cardio equipment and come up to the latest designs; we review and update our club design book every year. After 10 years, plates must be replaced and after 15, the full strength line. What are your ambitions for the UK and Ireland? We currently have 185 clubs across the UK and Ireland and our goal is to reach 500 within the next ve to seven years. We’re expecting to open around 30 new clubs this year, although we may also lose a small number of sites as we rationalise parts of the network. Once we build a stronger pipeline, we’ll accelerate that growth, doubling the number of openings each year. It’s aggressive, but we feel the UK is well proportioned to support this growth. Property hasn’t been a major constraint for us, either. We often hear people say it’s hard to nd good sites, but we’re actually seeing strong property opportunities at the 4,000–10,000sq ft footprint we want. We’ve never had more agreements to lease in our property pipeline. Ireland is also a market we’re particularly excited about. Our Irish clubs perform very well and we see a lot of potential there. Similarly, Scotland is a largely untapped opportunity.
That said, a lot of younger people today are spending differently: they aren’t going out to pubs as much and are quite happy to invest in health and tness. For this audience, £45 a month for a gym membership isn’t perceived as expensive. Some of our London clubs are already closer to £60 a month, but generally we want to sit in that £45–£55 price range. Some of our older locations are currently priced lower, but as we improve our core product and upgrade the network through our remodelling programme, we’ll move towards that premium convenience positioning and price point.
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2026
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