Greater Manchester gym refuses to close as owner says it’s essential business

Fitness For Life on Manchester Road in Bury says it will be staying open during the second national lockdown, despite the new restrictions. 

Jayne Deakin, 51, who has worked in the fitness industry for more than two decades believes her business should be classed as essential and therefore able to remain open. 

Speaking to the Bury Times, she said: “The only reason I’m doing this is for my members.

“I’m frightened to death, I’m not daft and I know there’s a virus so I’m really worried, but these are the people I get out of bed every day for.

“There’s no logic in shutting a gym – not when I’ve spent thousands of pounds making it covid safe.

“They’re not giving a valid enough reason – how can garden centres, and click and collect alcohol from pubs be essential, but gyms that keep people physically and mentally fit and healthy, and able to fight the virus aren’t?”

Fitness For Life has now been reopen for 110 days and has had no cases linked to the site.

Latest NHS Test and Trace figures (week 43) show that of the 107,046 cases reported in that week, 33,233 had common exposure with another.

From this, the data has calculated 10,036 common locations or settings including restaurants, schools, supermarkets and gyms that were reported.

This data shows that gyms accounted for 2.8% of all common locations reported (based on shared postcode). 

This puts gyms behind secondary schools, which takes up 6.8% of all the common locations and supermarkets (11.2%).

The data explains that locations with more visitors are more likely to be identified as common exposures and that no adjustments have been made for how often a common location is visited.

This means that while the data shows that 930 people (2.8%) had visited the gym it doesn’t explain that they caught coronavirus at the gym. 

Mrs Deakin added: “These people need that reason to get out of bed in the morning – I’ve got full classes booked all day tomorrow.

“The only people who aren’t coming are people either in the police or married to police officers, or those in the NHS who can’t come because of their jobs.

“For everyone else it’s a lifeline – I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing, if I’ve made the right decision, but I know in my heart I’ve got to do what I believe in.

“It’s not about money, I could shut that door, put my computer on, and teach through Zoom, but it’s not about that.

“It’s been a difficult eight months and now it’s dark, it’s wet, it’s that time of year when depression and anxiety is harder, my members need me.

“It feels so empty, you’ve not got that interaction you just do the class and then you go, there’s just a feeling of loneliness.

“For some of my members I’m the only thing they see in a day, I can’t take that away from them. As long as my members want to come I will try and be there.”

She added that she’s worried about being fined for staying open. Currently, the fines begin at £1,000 for businesses found to be breaking the coronavirus restrictions and double until the fourth offence, when it reaches £10,000.

She added: “I’m 51 years old and I’ve never been in trouble with the police so I’m absolutely terrified.

“I’m scared I’m going to get fined, I can’t pay fines but I’ll find a way to make it work – what else am I going to do, shut my doors?

“I’m not blindly following the rules without reason.

“There’s been a lot of backlash, people telling me I deserve to be fined because I’m breaking the rules but I’m not – I’m making a stand for what I believe in.”