COMPETITION between Oxford’s gyms is set to hot up after another was given permission to open 24 hours a day.

Feel Fit Gym, in Templars Square, opened in 2010 but has faced competition from PureGym, just metres away in the Templars Shopping Park, which opened five years later.

Feel Fit Gym claims it is the ‘largest and most state-of-the-art’ in Oxford, while Leeds-based no frills PureGym runs more than 230 branches across the country.

Oxford City Council has said gyms like Feel Fit and PureGym are making it more difficult to attract people to their own leisure centres.

PureGym has been able to trade for 24 hours a day – but Feel Fit Gym was restricted to other opening hours.

Currently it is open from 7am until 11pm every day but the city council approved a plan on Friday to allow it to trade round the clock.

Documents on behalf of Feel Fit Gym state: “The Feel Fit Gym operation has been successfully operating since late 2010 and the operators undertook a major refurbishment in 2015, with a £1m investment into renovation works and introduction of new state of the art health and exercise equipment.

“However, in November 2015 planning permission was granted for a new gym at Templars Shopping Park, immediately opposite the application site on the other side of Between Towns Road, for Pure Gym. That planning permission has no restrictions and is open for 24 hours a day.”

Feel Fit said it hoped the plans would mean ‘wider customer choice’ and would allow them to ‘better meet the needs of the whole community’.

The city council’s planning officers also gave Feel Fit Gym permission to extend onto first and second floors next to its current spot. Previously that was reserved for shops but following Friday’s decision that will now change.

The company also said it was ‘unaware of any complaints or issues from noise associated with any gym activity, including the comings and goings of members between 7am and 11pm’ since it opened.

It added: “Later opening will allow potential customers who cannot conveniently use this facility at present to do so at a time that is more convenient and appropriate to them.

“[It] will also broaden the customer choice for health and wellbeing activities available as part of the local economy within this part of Cowley.”

The city council’s own six leisure sites are run by Fusion. They include the Leys Pools and Leisure Centre, which opened in January 2015.

That replaced Oxford’s Temple Cowley Pools, which campaigners tried unsuccessfully to save.