Councils in England and Wales accused of excessive fees to run outdoor classes

Report documents use of commercial licensing for free or donation-based exercise classes in parks and on beaches

At 6am on the beach at Westgate-on-Sea in Kent, Angela Brier-Stephenson used to meet a small group of about 10 people for yoga.

The class lasted 45 minutes and participants paid what they could.

Thanet council told her she would need to pay £1,200 a year as part of its seasonal licensing scheme. She has not run the class for the past two summers as a result.

Councils across England and Wales require hundreds of pounds in fees, dozens of pages of paperwork and first-aid certification from people running small, free or donation-based exercise classes in parks and on beaches, according to a new report published by the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life.

The report, titled Banned from the Beach: the Crackdown on Outdoor Community Sport, documents how licensing schemes first aimed at commercial personal trainers and bootcamps in the early 2000s now also apply to even small community gatherings, including a qigong class of seven people, and a mother-and-baby choir.

Josie Appleton, the director of the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life, said: “The fees bear no relation to any money these classes make and are frequently far larger than the cost of running the scheme.”

Thanet brought the fee down to £300 for fitness activities before the 2026 season. “The licensing process allows the council to ensure that all current regulations are met. When an individual or organisation provides a service to the public that involves payment or donation, regardless of pricing structure, it remains a commercial activity,” a council spokesperson said. “All commercial operations require licences when trading on publicly owned land. Fees are set by business type and location and started at £300 for fitness activity in locations such as Westgate-on-Sea.”

In Bristol, Julia Turner is resisting a £100 fee to run her £8-a-session, BYOB (bring your own baby) choir. “I am leading classes for new mothers in parks which have no clean working facilities; there are no bandstands to keep us dry and there is no way to reserve a spot. I would be happy to pay a one-off fee for the council to check my risk assessments but other than that, what are we actually paying for?” she said.

Turner has staged a flash-mob singing demonstration inside City Hall. But she admitted that running the choir, which began as a passion project, was at risk of becoming “too difficult to bother with”.

Also in Bristol, Chloe Broomby said the fees had made it impossible to run her weekly, donation-based qigong classes on the Downs.

“I don’t make much money; some weeks I only had seven people turning up,” she said. “It really was for the joy of it.”

Ailie Tam, who has taught community yoga in St George Park in Bristol for six years, was happy to continue running her classes at an occasional loss when only one or two people turned up. But she too has stopped the sessions since fees were introduced.

Bristol city council said its scheme included discounted rates of up to 75% for small businesses and charitable organisations.

“Licensing helps to ensure that businesses operating in these important public spaces are appropriately insured and act responsibly,” said Stephen Williams, a councillor and the chair of the public health and communities policy committee. “The licence fees cover the cost of administering the scheme, with any surplus money reinvested into maintaining and improving our city’s parks.”

Appleton’s report identifies 19 councils with licensing schemes for outdoor exercise that also apply to free or donation-based classes. The councils, she said, used a range of legal mechanisms, from events-licensing schemes designed for large events, and others designed for commercial personal trainers in the early 2000s, to Victorian park bylaws.

In the London borough of Richmond, running an unlicensed exercise class is a criminal offence – enforced by a private contractor, Parkguard, which issues fixed-penalty notices.

“Our enforcement officers will seek to engage constructively and support park users in understanding and complying with regulations, using formal enforcement action only where necessary and proportionate,” said a council spokesperson. “Where an organised activity makes regular use of our parks, it’s reasonable that it makes a contribution towards managing and maintaining them.”

Councils say they need to know who is using public land and to ensure activities are safe.

In the London borough of Waltham Forest, a free outdoor fitness class was stopped mid-session by two park rangers. A council spokesperson said: “We ask for a small fee and completion of forms to provide vital information – even for free events – to ensure compliance with safeguarding and health and safety policies, and to help contribute to maintenance costs.”

In Swansea, officials initially proposed charging Helen Wilson £24.15 a session for the free or donation-based weekly beach yoga classes she had been running for more than a decade. After hundreds of messages of support and a petition, the council withdrew the charge, saying the fees were to ensure public space was used in a safe way and that it had initially understood the classes to be commercial.

Wilson said: “I think they saw it as an opportunity to make money and if that jeopardised what I was offering, then so be it.”

Tam believed the main issues was that “the people being pushed out of parks by these fees are the very people helping to make those spaces more valued, cared for and actively used by their communities”.