THE BUSINESSES REDUCING NHS PRESSURE ARE BEING TAXED OUT OGF EXISTENCE

Let's start with something that shouldn't need saying: gyms keep people healthy. They reduce obesity, help manage diabetes, prevent heart disease, support mental health, and take pressure off an NHS that is already on its knees. Every person who trains regularly is, in a very real sense, one fewer patient.

Gyms are functional, underfunded public health infrastructure. Right now, the Government is punishing them instead of supporting them.

Business rates, the tax commercial properties pay to operate, have been rising sharply and, in many cases, absurdly. Independent gyms, which already run on tight margins and rely on community loyalty rather than corporate backing, are bearing the brunt. Some are already gone. More will follow if nothing changes.

Nicolas Denby, owner of London gym Sleven and founder of GymSync, is not willing to sit quietly and watch that happen. Nick runs Fair Rates for Fitness, a campaign to stop independent gyms being priced out of existence, alongside the Gym Owners Forum and with Ashbourne Membership Management.

OUR HIGHEST PAID EMPLOYEE IS THE COUNCIL

Business rates at Sleven went from £16,838 in 2024 to over £43,000 in 2026. Across the independent gyms in Nick's survey, combined business rates rose 265% in two years, more than tripling the average bill. These increases are not based on profit. Not based on success. Just on the fact that you have a physical space and you are trying to build something in it. These are not small increases being managed. These are businesses being crushed.

It is not just bad luck or bad timing. The UK tax system is structurally designed to penalise physical spaces, community hubs and labour-intensive businesses, while favouring online businesses, automation and companies with no real-world footprint. Independent gyms tick every "wrong" box.

THE SYSTEM IS STRUCTURALLY BROKEN

The cruel irony is hard to ignore. The Government wants a healthier population, it says so constantly. And yet the businesses actually delivering that health, day in and day out, are being loaded with costs that make survival nearly impossible. Meanwhile hospitals, GPs and mental health services are overwhelmed with conditions that regular exercise could prevent or manage. The maths does not add up.

There is also the VAT problem. In the UK, gym memberships are taxed at 20%. In the Netherlands it is 9%. In Sweden, 6%. Those countries treat fitness as prevention. The UK treats it as a luxury. Meanwhile, physical inactivity costs the UK around £7.4bn a year, larger than the entire UK gym market. So we are taxing the very thing that could help solve a problem costing us billions. It is backwards.

WHAT DO GYMS EVEN GET BACK?

Nick raised another point that is hard to shake. Sleven pays over £43,000 a year in business rates. In return? Potholes outside the gym that get painted around rather than filled. Members and coaches who do not feel safe walking in early or leaving late. Phone thefts nearby. Bins that do not get collected.

WHY THIS IS EVERYONE'S PROBLEM

Independent gyms are not just places to train. They are where people show up when they are struggling. Where communities form. Where someone dealing with depression finds routine, or a kid finds focus. When one closes, it does not get replaced, not by a council leisure centre with a six-week waiting list, and not by a £200-a-month boutique studio.

This is about the gym down your road, the coach who knows your name, the community that formed around 6am classes. If the rates do not change, a lot of that disappears.

THE STORY SO FAR

When the campaign pressed the Treasury, the response pointed to support packages and relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. It sounded reasonable on the surface. But as Nick put it: "It's like breaking someone's leg and handing them a crutch." Relief does not fix a broken model. When rates rise this steeply, a cap on increases is not the answer. The model itself needs to change.

And it is not just business rates. Independent gyms are taxed on memberships, charged business rates on the property, and pay national insurance on staff, all on revenue, not profit. Whether the gym makes money or not, the bills keep coming. As Nick says, you essentially open a gym to pay taxes.

WHAT CAN WE ACTUALLY DO ABOUT IT

Fair Rates for Fitness is a campaign for gym owners and gym-goers alike, with a clear ask: fairer business rates and a lower rate of VAT for the fitness businesses that keep this country healthy.

GET INVOLVED

You do not need to be a gym owner or even a gym-goer to care about this.

• Back the campaign at fairratesforfitness.com

• Share Nick's content, the more people see it, the harder it is to ignore

• Talk about it, this issue flies under the radar because most people do not know it is happening