Corporate health and fitness provider Bladerunner is to open a health and fitness club at Abbs Cross School in Hornchurch in September – its first new opening in the education sector since entering the market last month.

The five-year contract is one of five inherited by Bladerunner when it acquired Body & Mind, the operator of dual-use sporting facilities at schools and colleges.

The facilities at Abbs Cross School represent an investment of £3.5m and will include a 50-station gym equipped by Sportsart and Hoist, two exercise studios, a 25m x10m swimming pool, a fourcourt sports hall, four tennis courts and grass playing pitches.

The school sold off some of its playing fields to a housing developer to fund the facility.

Bladerunner will host a series of marketing and promotional activities, including roadshows, to launch the club to both staff and parents at the school, as well as the general public who can use the facilities outside of school hours.

“This facility is a great example of our dual-use strategy and would be a great model for any education establishment to follow,” said Bladerunner’s business development director, Keith Osborne.

“We now seem to have got the formula 100 per cent and are ready to expand this market,” he said.

Osborne was formerly managing director of Body & Mind and now heads up Bladerunner’s new educational division. It’s other educational contracts include Liverpool College; Canterbury High School; Alder Community High School, Hyde and Kingston College, Kingston-upon-Thames.