Jubilee Hall Trust has confirmed that it will be giving up the lease of the historic Jubilee Hall premises in London’s Covent Garden in order to ensure the charity’s future.

Jubilee Hall Trust CEO, Jon Giles, says that with the Trust playing an essential role in the ecosystem of preventative healthcare for communities who struggle to access health and fitness activities, the decision to let the site go has been taken to safeguard the charity’s future.

The community gym was set up in 1984, when a 125-year lease was secured at a peppercorn rent. However, with most of the membership being commuters, demand hasn’t recovered since the pandemic.

Formerly part of London’s fruit and vegetable market, the site is expensive to run.

In a statement, the Trust says: “Since COVID, the cost of living and the energy crisis, it has been much more difficult to make the charity financially viable and the gym in Covent Garden commercial operation has suffered due to falling membership.

“The gym is located in a beautiful Grade II listed building and is extremely expensive to maintain. This means it is no longer viable.

“We are already in discussions with a number of parties to find new locations in which we can continue the important work we do. Taking these steps will secure our future and enable Jubilee Hall Trust to continue improving the lives of our local communities, as we have been doing since the 1970s, for many years to come.”

Jubilee Hall Trust runs three other sites: The Armoury in Hampstead which is in an old Victorian Drill Hall and offers GP referral and cardiac rehabilitation programmes. The Westminster Gym in the House of Commons, which generates profits to underpin community projects, and a budget gym in Southwark aimed at the least affluent local communities.