New gym set for approval at Fulwood employment park

Drawings of units 3 to 6 at Eastway Business Park Pic: Cassidy + Ashton — Drawings of units 3 to 6 at Eastway Employment Park Pic: Cassidy + Ashton

An application to allow a Fulwood business park unit to become a gym is set to be approved.

The original application for Eastway Employment Park was for 10 commercial units for a mixed use of Commercial, Business and Service (Class E) General industrial (Class B2) and Storage or distribution (Class B8).

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The proposed gym at Eastway would offer personal training and bespoke fitness classes by appointment.

Services would be targeted at people aged over 30 and those who may not feel comfortable in a traditional gym environment, for example people who are obese or members of the transgender community.

Drawing of Eastway Employment Park Pic: Cassidy + Ashton

Opening hours would be between 6am and 8am, and 6pm and 9pm. No more than 10 people would be booked in at any one time with the gym operating with three full-time and four part-time staff.

The remaining nine units at the site would continue to be used for employment purposes.

While policy states that gyms should ideally be located within town centres, a report to Planning Committee from Preston City Council’s Director of Development and Housing says a test found no other suitable sites, so the application for gym use is considered to be acceptable.

The report notes that a gym at Unit 3 would use eight per cent of the floorspace within the business park and ‘would not therefore lead to an unacceptable reduction on the type, quality or quantity of employment land supply’.

The report also mentions that the proposed gym would provide facilities for the expected influx of new residents due to the significant amount of planned developments in the area.

The application (06/2021/1490) will be discussed at Planning Committee on Thursday 6 January. The report can be viewed on the Preston City Council website.

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