Britain’s high streets desperately need a makeover and Harvey Jenkinson has a plan to help make that happen. He’s got his eye on some of the country’s biggest empty shops with a plan to fill them with activities you’d normally expect to find miles from town centres and cities: climbing walls, trampolines, bowling alleys, ‘street golf’, fitness classes, e-sports and a growing menu of other activities.
The latest giant venue, which includes a go-kart track, opens this weekend in the old 85,000 square foot Debenhams in a shopping centre in Wandsworth, South-West London, taking the total number of Gravity Active centres around the country to 15.
Another 15 are in the pipeline, including more former Debenhams stores as well as clusters of vacant units left by the collapse of Topshop and others casualties.
Driving force: Gravity Active boss Harvey Jenkinson in a go-kart at the old Wandsworth Debenhams store
‘It had been a dream of ours to do a really prominent site,’ Jenkinson, 39, says from his home in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. ‘We’d been telling landlords for a while that’s what we wanted, and it’s taken the strain of the high street to give us the opportunity.’
What began with one trampoline centre back 2015 with his business partners Michael Harrison and Simon Whicker – a former senior partner at accountancy giant KPMG whom he met while sailing – has already grown significantly in scale and broadened in ambition. Jenkinson says: ‘The next three to five years is about families and having fun and enjoying the time they’ve got together. Our mindset has always been that we wanted to be a high street name. Other similar companies back then were one-site industrial estate businesses. But we set out from the beginning to look to the future. We knew we wanted five and then ten and kept asking ‘what can we do that’s different?’
Both he and Michael grew up in the seaside town of Bridlington, not far from where he now lives. His family ran fishing boats and excursions, and even a toy shop.
He says: ‘I’ve known Michael since we were kids. We grew up together. He’s from a travelling funfair originally and his family decided to settle in our little seaside town. He’s been involved in leisure and hospitality his whole life.’
Jenkinson and his wife had just returned from more than a decade in the Caribbean and America working on private sailing yachts.
‘One thing that industry does is create a good work ethic because you can never quite switch off – lots of really good skills that you can utilise in business,’ he says. He recounts, on their return: ‘Tracy saw an episode of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills – or something like that – and one of their husbands had opened a trampoline Skyzone trampoline franchise.
‘She said it could be a fantastic venture, so we talked about it. We knew nothing about any of it but it seemed like quite a good idea.’
Harrison – the operations driver of the business to Jenkinson’s legal and financial side – was determined to negotiate their way into top retail and leisure destinations rather than far cheaper alternatives.
‘Looking back, that was definitely the right call,’ he says, pointing out that has sharpened their competitive edge while also putting them in the right place at the right time as retail retreats.
‘The plan was very different to what everyone else was doing. We wanted town centre locations and shopping malls and we questioned that strategy for a long time. Other trampoline parks were getting built out of town and they were paying very cheap rents. But we stuck to our guns, focused more on diversifying as we went and on being best in class – the best standards, cleanliness. We knew in the long term that would allow us to stay profitable when others fell away – which is what has happened.
‘We were very fortunate to get a meeting with Land Securities. There was a unit at the back of the Xscape Yorkshire [ski slope] in Castleford they hadn’t been able to get to work. A couple of businesses had tried and gone bust so they gave us a shot.’
That was 2014 and the beginnings of a 17,000 square foot trampoline centre. With imported kit – and some help from friends and family – they built it themselves.
‘It was incredibly successful from the beginning. We increased footfall, helped support the other tenants – not just with the people we brought in, but the birthday party food delivered by Nando’s and Pizza Express. It was good for everybody.’
Offers for more leases quickly followed – not just from Landsec but other major landlords too.
‘We became the blue-eyed boys,’ he says. As success mounted, so did their ambitions to grow and add new activities.
‘We’ve been generating cash from day one and made nearly £1million [profit before tax and interest payments] in the first year. So we just pumped it all back in and carried on building.’
Now with franchise deals in Germany and Saudi Arabia, the international arm of the business is already up and running. They have just appointed a chairwoman – former YO! Sushi chief executive Vanessa Hall – and drafted in KPMG to help plan and raise strategic investment.
Jenkinson estimates the business will tap around £10million in funds by early next year from debt or investment on top of the cash generated in the business and hefty contributions from landlords – more readily available now than ever before.
The next 15 will include more giant centres like Wandsworth. Eight of those will be 60,000 to 100,000 square feet. Nearly all will be in former retail outlets.
Jenkinson says the new opportunities are not just retail closures, but a different generation with a new perspective on free time and how to spend it.
‘It’s hard for a pub just to be a pub any more. In Wandsworth, if you want to go and have a drink, we’ve got two bars, three restaurants and a whole host of other things you can do along the way rather than just stand in a pub. It has its place but business needs to adapt.’