Life Leisure has reached a major financial milestone, operating Stockport Council’s active wellbeing services without revenue support from the local authority.
The operator finished the year £625,000 ahead of budget and £830,000 ahead of the previous year, generating a £60,000 operational surplus.
This means the net cost of leisure provision to Stockport Council has fallen by £2.3 million since the Stockport Active Community Interest Company was established.
The result follows a restructuring of the relationship between Life Leisure and the council, with the operator now acting directly as its agent – a move which has enabled VAT rebates and strengthened integration between leisure and wider council services.
Income also increased by around 9 per cent year-on-year, helped by growth in swimming lessons, income at Stockport Sports Village, the addition of a padel court at Grand Central and rising membership following a three-year refurbishment programme, with membership ending the financial year at 16,800.
Overall operating costs remained flat, in spite of staffing costs increasing by 10 per cent as the operator moves towards becoming a Real Living Wage employer.
Life Leisure says its services generated more than £22 million in social value during 2025/26, based on 92,920 individual participants meeting national physical activity thresholds across almost two million visits.
The organisation is also scaling its Grow Academy in line with Stockport Council’s wider People Plan, creating structured career development pathways intended to build a workforce capable of operating across commercial leisure, community prevention and clinical healthcare intervention.
The move points to a broader ambition for the organisation: positioning staff not simply as facility operators, but as part of Stockport’s wider preventative health workforce.
CEO John Oxley said the organisation exists to serve “the whole of Stockport, not just those who walk through the doors of our Hubs”, with a particular focus on people who are least active and furthest from good health.
“We’ve come a long way,” he said, “growth in every aspect of our business, every year for the last four years; meeting the needs of those already motivated to take care of their own health while working on initiatives that encourage those traditionally under-served through socially-connected activity that’s non-judgmental and enables more people to live well and feel better.”
HCM Summit 2026
John Oxley is part of the all-keynote line-up for this year’s HCM Summit, taking place in Westminster, London on 22 October.
Other speakers are SATS CEO Sondre Gravir; Nuffield Health CEO Alex Perry; Future Practice co-founder Oli Patrick; Brain and Fitness CEO Anna Milani; Tribute Brands CEO Jonathan Fisher; Jims CEO PJ Nuitten; Fitness First UK MD Marc Diaper; GB sprinter, Gladiator and You+ ambassador Harry Aikines-Aryeetey; Everyone Active MD Duncan Jefford and GP and TV doctor Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi.
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**Background briefing – Life Leisure**
Life Leisure’s move to zero revenue support has been underpinned by a cross-subsidisation model which uses income from commercially successful facilities and services to fund preventative health and community interventions.
Higher-spec gym and studio provision in stronger trading locations helps support programmes including hospital-based activity, SEND sessions and Greater Manchester’s largest exercise referral scheme.
Life Leisure says the exercise referral programme costs less than £200 per participant to deliver while generating an estimated £22,000 in social value for each person taking part.
That emphasis on social return has led the operator to broaden the way it measures performance. Alongside QALYs and data from Moving Communities, it is using Wellby methodology, which assesses changes in self-reported life satisfaction alongside preventative health cost reductions for the health service.
Expanding access for populations furthest from good health has been a priority. The Stockport Active Scheme was launched to reduce barriers to activity for more than 800 underserved residents.
In June, Life Leisure opened the Move Well Studio at Avondale – the first publicly accessible facility of its kind in Greater Manchester – for people with acute mobility challenges, neurological conditions and age-related physical decline.
Community campaigns are being used to extend Life Leisure’s reach beyond its facilities. Its Move Stockport campaign, delivered with the NHS, schools and local businesses, encouraged residents to complete 30 minutes of activity a day and resulted in an 11 per cent increase in recorded exercise to 8.25 million minutes – an additional 14,000 hours of movement across the borough compared with the previous year.
Digital systems are increasingly being deployed to improve engagement and retention. Monthly active users of the Life Leisure app increased by 31.5 per cent year-on-year to 19,052, while the wider web ecosystem recorded 168,000 active users and 2.3 million digital interactions.
An automated 60-day CRM onboarding journey increased member onboarding completion rates from 13 per cent to 32 per cent and – according to the operator – extended average membership tenure by two months.
Life Leisure has also introduced Stockport Sam, an AI-powered virtual assistant designed to handle frontline customer service queries and sales navigation.
A new leisure management system is being prepared, with the aim of delivering greater customer personalisation, simplifying booking pathways and generating deeper operational insight.
Next-stage projects include the integrated Community Wellbeing Hub at Marple and expansion of the PARiS exercise referral programme.
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