Stuart's Story

I joined the Jubilee Hall Trust in 2009 and at the time I was the club manager for our Covent Garden gym branch. 

In this role I visited the Colombo Centre frequently, then seven years ago I had the chance to become the general manager and I’m still here today. The Colombo Centre is very different to our other Jubilee Hall sites and any gym I have worked in during my 30-year career within the fitness industry. What makes it so different is the pricing structure, especially for the local community. 

The gym, building, and services we offer are very much aimed at the people who live and work in the area. Local residents pay just £18 a month, whereas our other Jubilee Hall sites charge £60-£70. You can really see that gap in pricing structure and it’s a similar discount for people who work close to Colombo, who are only charged £22. Even for your regular gym goer it’s only £26, and that’s for a central London gym. 

Immediately from this price point you can see the Colombo Centre is aimed at everybody. We are not using price as a barrier to get people into the gym, which is generally what you find elsewhere. Even the lower cost gyms in London are now between £30/£40. 

Colombo Centre is different because we welcome anyone, regardless of how much you can afford. We give away lots of free memberships to people in our community who can’t pay. Those having to choose ‘do I buy food’ or ‘do I go to the gym’. If you’re unfortunate enough to have to make this choice, food wins every time.  

We feel that people need to be allowed to have exercise in their life. That’s what the Colombo Centre offers. It gives people making really difficult decisions, such as how they’re going to feed their kids or pay for washing detergent, the option to get fit. 

Therefore, often the people you find within the gym are not your typical gym people. They are just people. It’s not full of lots of fit people posing in front of mirror, wearing the latest clothing/trainers. It’s not that. It’s normal people making a difference to their health and wellbeing.  

That to me is something you don’t see often in the fitness industry. There are very few leisure trusts or charity gyms that do what we do. That’s why Colombo is different and important. 

The main reason I’ve spent such a large chunk of my career at the Colombo Centre is because it’s aimed at getting local people into the gym. Your Fitness First and David Lloyd are expensive, you can’t join them unless you can pay which locks out a lot of people. 

That’s what really drives me. Getting people into the gym who you would never really see there. That everyday person. To do this it’s important to break down barriers. People often see a gym and think it’s intimidating, you see all the equipment and think, this isn’t for me.  

For me, you want people that come into the gym for the first-time, learn what to do and build a sustainable fitness habit. When Covid came around it was huge. That facility being taken away was quite hard on people’s mental health. When we came back, albeit in a disjointed way, you could see that affect of us not being there. There was a real sense that people had lost something that was really important to them.  

It’s not until you lose something that you really know how much it matters. You hear of stories where a community aspect of life disappears that people think has very little worth. It’s probably free, small, and people think if it wasn’t there, it wouldn’t really matter.  

Then you find hundreds of people that connect with that space and their lives are affected. The ripple affect outwards is felt hugely. The key thing is that this small, tiny building, that sits surrounded by huge buildings, is a central hub, vital to so many people. That’s what keeps me interested about being here, it’s not just a gym, it’s a proper community centre. 

The Colombo Centre is owned by Coin Street and run by Jubilee Hall Trust.