P-05-986 Allow small gyms and personal training spaces to open sooner during COVID restrictions, Correspondence – Petitioner to Committee, 07.09.20

Dear Petitions Committee,

Thanks for your email.

I do believe this adequately deals with the issues I presented. The gym being open is providing the very much needed mental and physical health for our community once again. 

However I have 2 points related I wish to raise;

1. The guidance is not being followed by a majority of gyms in our area. It only takes 10 minutes browsing other gyms’ Instagram pages to see this. The rules simply aren’t being enforced and because of this the businesses following the rules, like ourselves, are essentially being punished. I would like to know what the plans for enforcement and the punishments planned are. We are running at a massively reduced capacity and at a huge financial loss whilst other gyms rake in the money by not following the rules.

2. There was additional support offered in the form of £8000 grants in Swansea to help restaurants and cafes improve their outdoor seating areas, whilst businesses in sectors such as ours, that were shut for a longer period of time, received no extra funding. As I pointed out at the very beginning of this discussion and has now finally been widely acknowledged, living a healthy and fit lifestyle is the best way to prepare ourselves for illnesses such as Covid. Why was there an “eat out to help out” scheme but no “get fit to help out scheme”? Why as a country are we promoting eating out over keeping fit and healthy, for the second time may I add (as businesses in this sector were allowed to open weeks before we were, both outside and then inside).

I look forward to your response, but I imagine as with everything else, we will have passed this point before I hear back from the Welsh Government and the hard working, rule-following businesses will have lost out further. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Kind regards,

Andrew