New-look gym is pulling its weight
Councillors told state-of-art facility is‘huge success’
The controversial creation of a 100-station gym at Perth’s Bell’s Sports Centre has been deemed a“huge success” with fitness usage doubling.
Last year Live Active Leisure transferred all fitness activities from Live Active Rodney to Bell’s to create a “destination gym”.
Live Active Leisure’s chief executive Paul Cromwell this week told councillors the change has attracted a “huge group of teenagers” now using the stateof-the-art facility.
The creation of the 100-station gym resulted in the loss of the sprung hall in the coaching hall at Bell’s and the termination of gym facilities at Rodney, which sparked strong opposition.
However, councillors were told - by Live Active Leisure’s chief executive - the change was needed as Bell’s had “an increasing and unsustainable deficit of £450,000 per annum”.
The new gym at Bell’s which features cardiovascular, resistance, spinning, conditioning and functional fitness equipment - opened to the public in July 2022.
Providing an update to Perth and Kinross Council’s Scrutiny and Performance Committee on Wednesday, April 26, chief executive Paul Cromwell said: “We had seven key areas in terms of the measures for success for that project.
“We did a review earlier this year and yes we’re on target even though we hadn’t obviously done a full year’s worth of operation with the facility opening last July.
“The fitness gym usage has doubled in terms of what it was pre-facility in terms of what the usage was like between Bell’s and Rodney so it’s been a huge success from that perspective.
“And it’s certainly helping the recovery of our membership package as well which if we talk about in terms of finance and income is an essential income stream to our company.
“It’s worked really well. It has worked particularly well for some groups which is creating some challenges but it’s a really positive challenge.
“We’ve also got school use. The schools are using the facility during the day.
“Many of these groups now - as part of the curriculum - are actually using the facility and the range of equipment we have. It’s getting really positive feedback from everybody in terms of experience.
“We’ve got a fairly seamless journey where people can book online to bypass/fast-stream reception to the actual gym with the technology invested.”
He told councillors that offering the right price and promotion to young people had paid off in what is “a challenging sector” due to the additional competition.
Mr Cromwell told the committee: “We have a huge group of teenagers now - a significant amount - that have engaged in that facility. It just shows to me that if you get the right offer, the right price point then you have got a real opportunity of significant engagement.”
However there have been challenges in some areas such as spinning uptake.
As well as the gym - as part of the £750,000 investment - Bell’s was given three new fitness studios: the Cycle (Spin) Studio; the Mind and Body Studio, and the Fitness Studio.
Live Active Leisure’s chief explained: “Our spin studio in particular has probably been the area that has not responded quite as well as we had hoped.
“But we are actively monitoring our programme at all times and will respond to that whether that’s a change in programme or a change in use.
“And - again - we have other programmes that are oversubscribed, so we’re actually looking at how we move things around and making sure we maximise occupancy and make sure we are managing our customers and the demand.”
He finished: “In terms of the project, it’s been a success.
“It’s not over and we need to continue to engage with our customers and make sure we continue to shape that facility going forward because it’s an outstanding facility for us to have and we need to make sure we maximise the use and the income generation aspects of it.”