Gyms to reopen in 10 to 14 days, with announcement due this afternoon

Members of the government's SAGE Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have visited gyms including PureGym and David Lloyd Leisure last week to see how a reopening could be handled.

Government scientists have feared having people breathing heavily indoors and in close proxmity to one another, as well as the number of cold, shiny surfaces which are also thought to be conditions in which the virus thrives.

Industry trade body UK Active has proposed that:

1. Only equipment two metres apart will be used

2. All "touchpoints" on equipment to be cleaned after every use

3. Capacity restrictions based on three metres square per person

4. No waiting around in groups between classes

5. Swimming pools to be open where chlorinated

6. One bather per 3m square

7. Only one parent per child supervising outside the pool

Humphrey Cobbold, chief executive of the PureGym chain said: “We are absolutely ready to go and have been ready for quite a while. We have got the protocols in place, we just want to get started.”

PureGyms would introduce slot booking for peak times to keep the numbers down and had “tried and tested” all the measures at its sites in Switzerland, Denmark and Poland which have been open for weeks already.

“Our customers in the UK are not guinea pigs. We have been open on the continent for as much as eight weeks and have not had a single case of transmission.”

In Switzerland alone, he said, members had made 2 million visits to the chain’s 40 gyms since lockdown ended.

“We are battlefield tested. We know the protocols work,” he said. “People respect each other’s distance and have been behaving appropriately.”

PureGyms went into the crisis burning through £9 million a month, he said, but savage cost-cutting including 2900 furloughed staff in the UK and nearly 4000 on the continent had reduced that dramatically.

The private equity-owned company would be able to meet a big bond payment that comes up imminently, he said.

David Lloyd Leisure chief executive Glenn Earlam said: “We are ready and raring to go. We’ve been preparing for weeks and weeks.”

While his company had reopened outdoor tennis courts and been running outdoors classes for up to six people, until the indoor areas and gyms are open, membership fees have been held.

He said 7500 of his 8500 staff had been furloughed but that he would be bringing them back as soon as his clubs could reopen.

He was shocked gyms had not been allowed to open like pubs and restaurants on 4 July as all the indications had been that they would. “We were particularly surprised because the chief medical officer said on several occasions that exercise was one of the best things you could do.”

Cobbold added: “This must have been the first war on obesity that started with a trip to the pub, and the government paying for half of your burger.”