Beauty venture launched by Pure Gym founders

DIRECTORS of Pure Gym and its founder Peter Roberts have teamed up to launch a health and beauty venture.

Mr Roberts along with Pure Gym development director Brian Scurrah and property director Angela Crawshaw have traded in treadmills for the new venture after developing the Leeds-based gym brand from a 2009 startup to a business now worth half a billion pounds.

New brand Spruce Moose is set to launch its first site in Harrogate at the newly-opened Everyman cinema and retail complex after a £250,000 investment from the trio.

Health and beauty business Spruce Moose will work on a membership model basis, offering up to 40% off treatments and will utilise a similar business model to that of Pure Gym and French beauty business Bodyminute.

The Grewelthorpe-based business, which was incorporated in early June, has taken a ten-year lease at 5 Albert Street in Harrogate, next to Cote Brasserie.

The 2,200 sq ft salon will launch in late November, early December.

Tom Hodgson of Leeds-based property firm, Pudney Shuttleworth who acted for Spruce Moose said: “Getting the first location right for Spruce Moose was imperative for the brand’s image.

“We looked at a few different locations in the major northern cities but settled on Harrogate as the ideal town to showcase the first Spruce Moose.

“This location in particular, within the new Everyman Cinema scheme, next door to Cote Brasserie is perfectly sandwiched in between Harrogate’s retail and office core, both of which are Spruce Moose’s core markets.

“The next towns and cities to be ticked off are likely to be Leeds, Manchester and York in the short term, with a full UK roll-out being the ultimate strategy.”

This comes following the announcement that the gym chain had withdrawn plans for an IPO earlier this month citing “market volatility.”