Slimming down at David Lloyd

WHITBREAD is launching a budget version of its David Lloyd Leisure club brand in an attempt to improve performance at its worst sites.

The David Lloyd Metro concept will mean that the FTSE 100 leisure group will compete with brands such as Fitness First and LA Fitness.

The cheaper format will be tested at two clubs - in Maidstone, Kent, and Maidenhead, Berkshire - from August. Membership will cost £39 against the usual £60 at the mainstream clubs.

If successful, more conversions will follow. Whitbread has identified 14 sites, mainly the poorest performers of its 57 clubs, that can be converted to the stripped-down format. These 14 clubs do not have the usual Lloyd trimmings, such as squash and tennis facilities.

The move, disclosed in the latest issue of Leisure Report, follows declining membership at Lloyd and points to an increasingly competitive fitness market.

It comes hot on the heels of a warning of a consumer slowdown from Whitbread chief executive Alan Parker, felt particularly at Lloyd and its pub-restaurants such as Beefeater and Brewers Fayre. In its latest set of accounts Whitbread took a £10m hit on the revaluation of the first four sites earmarked for its Metro development.

David Lloyd Leisure is the brainchild of former tennis star David Lloyd and launched in 1993. It also manages several golf courses. Recent speculation has suggested that former PizzaExpress boss David Page would be interested in acquiring the chain if Whitbread decided to exit the business.