David Lloyd ramps up growth with new investment

David Lloyd Clubs has been granted planning permission to develop a health and racquets centre in Swords, County Dublin as it pushes to grow its portfolio.

The project has been in planning since August 2022 when the first application was submitted to Fingal County Council.

This is the company’s second location in Ireland, with the existing David Lloyd Dublin Riverview earmarked for an upgrade.

The new site will be two-storey and include a tennis dome, padel courts, multi-use courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and group exercise studios. It will also have a spa garden – including an outdoor sauna – and a café/restaurant with an outdoor terrace and play areas.

The company is continuing to invest across its estate and on 19 February the west London club, Fulham Broadway is being reopened following an upgrade, with changes including a new gym, four group exercise studios for its proprietary concepts: Blaze, Mind and Body, High Energy Studio and Cycle Hub.

The 20m indoor pool has been refurbished and a spa retreat added with a Himalayan salt sauna, rainforest experience shower and a hydrotherapy pool. The business lounge and clubroom have also been revamped.

A number of trial installations of a new spa concept were highly successful, with 22-25 per cent yields, prompting David Lloyd to continue with this capex programme and spa retreats are now being added at 30 of its clubs, with more in the pipeline.

Aimed at the upper end of the market and in particular families, David Lloyd has three brands: David Lloyd Clubs, Harbour Club – which now only has two locations, due to a number of clubs being rebranded as David Lloyd – and David Lloyd Meridian Spa and Fitness in Germany.

Of the 133 clubs, 103 are in the UK and 30 are located across Europe.

In a 2023 sales prospectus, David Lloyd said it saw room for 100 more clubs in the UK and 500 in Europe, although this statement was removed from later prospectuses.

The company currently has around nine clubs in its development pipeline – two purchased and on-site and seven exchanged, subject to planning – and plans to build clusters in Brussels and Madrid. The new Ireland site counts as one of the nine.