LA FITNESS, the fitness club operator, yesterday announced plans to boost club openings after healthy membership sales during the January trading period.

The group is scheduled to open just four clubs in the current financial year compared with a peak of 20 in 2001. But it is now predicting a “steady increase” on the back of its resilient trading performance.

In an update ahead of half-year results next month, the group said that the positive trend reported at its annual meeting had continued, with total membership at its 65 clubs reaching 190,000, up 15 per cent on six months earlier.

Fred Turok, LA’s founder and chief executive, said the expansion would be funded largely from cashflow. “We could open six to eight clubs from our cashflow.”

Mr Turok cautioned that the company had been forced to work hard to ensure a good January, when the industry typically sells twice as many memberships as in a normal month. “There is an appetite but at the right price, which leads me to believe that in terms of the economy we’re not out of the woods yet.”

But he added: “Yield per member has crept up slightly, which is very healthy.”

LA’s shares, which have risen from 54p since March, added 2p to 184½p.

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