FITNESS facility owner Jack Curr is looking forward to welcoming all his members back on Thursday (December 3) as the second nationwide lockdown ends.

Jack owns JWC Health and Fitness at Holmes Chapel, and will be opening as Cheshire East becomes subject to Tier 2 (the high alert level) restrictions from Wednesday (December 2)

Jack said: “We were very confident that we would be reopening, as the fitness industry has been fighting to remain open, based on the fact that the evidence has proven there’s such low transmission rates in gyms and their benefits on people’s physical and mental health.

“We were very confident the government was going to do the right thing, and no matter what tier we go into now we will remain open, which is great news.”

He said his business had been very lucky in the support it had received from its members, and the gym had been supporting them with online training.

He added: “We have been very proactive, and have kept adapting our services to whatever restrictions there have been.

“About 60 to 70 per cent of our members have been doing online training, and we have got a lockdown group on Facebook – a lockdown four-week challenge.

“We’ve invited the community, and have 500 people on there doing live workouts.

“We’ve been sharing daily tips and challenges and they’ve been sharing their journey over the four weeks

“As well as reaching the majority of our members we’ve reached a lot of people in the community we wouldn’t normally work with – so that’s been really positive.

“We were confident the announcement was coming that we would be able to open again. Every member said they are coming back, and we’ve had a lot of new inquiries.

“I don’t thing gyms should have been closed this time round, but it is what it is.

“We are confident now that we’re on the way up, so fingers crossed this should be the last of the disruptions – but who knows?”