A FITNESS centre has stepped up to help members of a rival town centre gym which has gone into administration.

Ladies-only fitness centre energie fitness for women has offered to honour membership time for people hit by the collapse of Gymophobics in Huddersfield.

Administrators from insolvency firm Vantis were appointed after Gymophobics at 3 New Street ran into financial difficulties in the wake of the credit crunch.

Energie, which is based at 49-59 New Street has taken on 92 Gymophobics members so far and is working with the administrators to track down other members who may be unaware that their gym has closed.

A joint statement said: “Gymophobics in Huddersfield is closing its doors after a long battle to survive as a result of falling membership sales due to the recession.”

The statement said letters had gone out to members explaining why the gym had closed and telling them that they can continue to use their membership at Gymophobics in Halifax and Sowerby Bridge.

It said members not wishing to travel could transfer to energie, which had agreed to honour some of their membership time.

Unzar Aleem, who took over the energie franchise in Huddersfield in May this year after graduating in business management and marketing at Huddersfield University, said: “We are trying to rectify the situation.

“No one is to blame for what happened, but we are here to help.

“We are still trying to contact everyone because some members are on holiday and others may not have had their letters because of the postal strike.”

Energie has 645 members – more than 400 of them aged over 75.

Mr Aleem said he recruited more than 100 members on his opening day.

The centre is housed in the premises formerly occupied by the Motorcise organisation.

Energie, which is a franchise business, has both motorised fitness equipment to help mature ladies keen to maintain mobility and good health as well as advanced fitness equipment and conventional machines such as treadmills and cross trainers.