Because of the closures, the company has stopped charging membership fees, which means it has no money coming in.

The boss of the gym chain, Martin Long, says the firm’s income normally totals around £15m a month, however that has fallen to zero, overnight.

And that means he won’t have the money to fund the firm’s £3m monthly wage bill when it's due at the end of April.

Nearly all of the company’s 3,000 staff have been furloughed but Mr Long is worried that the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme, which covers 80% of a worker’s salary each month up to a maximum of £2,500, won’t be set up in time to step in.

In total, gyms and leisure centres employ about 189,000 people across the UK.

Leisure trade body UKActive has warned that more than half of them could be out of work in 11 weeks’ time.

However, a spokesman for the Treasury said the scheme would be in place by the end of the month.

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