{"id":409990,"date":"2026-01-16T02:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409990\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T02:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:38:16","slug":"exercise-class-fees-for-the-downs-slammed-as-harming-the-health-of-hundreds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409990\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercise class fees for the Downs slammed as harming the health of hundreds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Personal trainers will have to pay for \u00a32,600 a year for a licence to have a class with 20 or more people\"Bootcamp<\/p>\n

Bootcamp attendees speaking out about new licence fees(Image: Alex Seabrook)<\/p>\n

New exercise class fees for the Downs have been slammed as harming the health of hundreds of attendees. From April personal trainers who run bootcamp classes on the Downs will be made to pay \u00a32,600 every year for a licence, if their classes have at least 20 people attending.<\/p>\n

Smaller classes with fewer than 20 people will have to pay \u00a3900 a year for a licence. The new rules also mean that bootcamp classes will be restricted to several small zones, to prevent people exercising from damaging the grass and interfering with other parks activities. The Downs committee heard criticism of the new charges during a meeting on Monday, January 12.<\/p>\n

Jon Clayton, who runs the JC Full Body Fitness bootcamp, said the suggested zones where fitness classes would be squeezed into were unsuitable as the ground was uneven and close to people\u2019s houses. The licence fees<\/a> are due to be rolled out this April, despite ongoing concerns.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWhere we currently train at the Sea Walls has no negative impact on anyone. Why change that? I would like to understand the rationale behind the proposed annual charges of \u00a32,600. We have been running classes with high numbers for over 15 years. Every session we run is very well managed and very safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Downs committee decided last September to roll out charges of \u00a32,600 for classes with 20 or more people, in a closed meeting that wasn\u2019t open to members of the public<\/a> to attend, as the decision was deemed to be \u201ccommercially sensitive information\u201d. Normally, decisions affecting many people like this are taken transparently in public \u2014 and so this is a notable exception.<\/p>\n

Ben Skuse, area parks supervisor, said: \u201cParticularly in the winter months, there\u2019s an effect from constantly running up and down in the same areas and dropping kettle bells. There\u2019s an effect in December, January and February on already wet ground and our ability to then give an adequate playing surface for our paying football customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working the ground incredibly hard and having a large portfolio of parks fitness companies now operating here also has an impact as well. We need to take that into account and there needs to be acceptance that there\u2019s an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

However Mr Clayton said his bootcamps have relocated off of the football pitches, so this shouldn\u2019t be an issue. The locations are rotated too, so they\u2019re not on the same spot repeatedly. He was cut off from asking further questions by Conservative Councillor Henry Michallat, the lord mayor of the council, who told him to \u201cstop asking questions\u201d and \u201cfollow the rules or leave\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many people who attend bootcamp classes also came to City Hall to voice their concerns about the new \u201cpunitive\u201d fees. These included that being confined to small areas will create a \u201cmudbath\u201d, and prevent and discourage people from exercising and socialising. They also said that questions about the reasons behind the new licence fees had not been answered properly.<\/p>\n

David Price, one attendee, said: \u201cAs a 67-year-old man, I\u2019ve been attending fitness bootcamps for several years, and they help me both physically and psychologically. If you charge instructors, you will help eradicate these classes. These charges will directly affect the health and wellbeing of many individuals. Please reconsider them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olivia Price, another attendee, added: \u201cWe have people from teenagers all the way up to my mum who\u2019s 76 that train with Jon, because he is so fabulous. If you were to cut off this enterprise, it would be incredibly cruel for hundreds of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cpunitive\u201d fees will be different than for personal trainers in other parks in Bristol. That\u2019s due to a quirk in how the Downs are governed, with the committee consisting of councillors and members of the Society of Merchant Venturers, a historic business group. It\u2019s unclear how expensive fees in other parks will be, although they would likely be set at a much lower rate.<\/p>\n

Katharine Finn, a member of the Merchant Venturers, said: \u201cThe Downs committee is only following decisions that have been made by Bristol City Council<\/a> about all the rest of the public parks. Yes, there is an important distinction that we\u2019re making around the exact amount that we will charge and the additional question of location.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re not, independently as the Downs committee, setting off on a different tack to everything that has currently been done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The locations where classes will be restricted to will be revisited the next time the Downs committee meets in March, ahead of the licences coming into force the following month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Personal trainers will have to pay for \u00a32,600 a year for a licence to have a class with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[147018,337,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-409990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-bristol-city-council","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}