The Lake District is widely known as the UK’s adventure capital, so it’s not surprising to hear that some of the UK’s biggest outdoor companies began life here.
One of those companies is Lakeland Climbing Centres – a Kendal-based business that went from setting up one well-loved climbing wall to owning the UK’s largest chain of indoor climbing centres.
It’s a business that has grown rapidly over the years and has gone from welcoming 300 people a day to its centres in 2014 to over 2,000 people a day now.
Amongst the 11 climbing walls it owns, it also has the UK’s highest climbing wall in Kendal and one of the UK’s only national performance centres where national and international climbing competitions can take place.
But it all started in 1995 when a group of climbers were looking to turn Kendal’s Old Creamery factory into a wall and received financial backing from fellow keen climber and high-flying banker Jeremy Wilson and his business partner Kate Phillips.
Jeremy and Kate became directors of the business and for around 20 years, Kendal Wall remained a passion project that was looked after by Kate.
Jeremy, who has climbed all over the world including the famous El Capitan in Yosemite, said: “In 1987 I went to work in London and by that stage I was a keen climber and I used to go to a couple of indoor climbing walls down there and it kept my passion going while I was doing the long office days.
“In 1995 I was at a wedding and someone said that the Old Creamery in Kendal is going to be turned into a climbing wall but the people doing it are short of funding, do you want to get involved?
“I said yes and that became the catalyst to set up Kendal Wall. But it started as a labour of love for the climbing community and while it grew and had increased footfall each year, it was never run as a money maker.
“I was brought up in the Lake District and I’ve always had a passion for walking and climbing. Going climbing releases you from your day to day life and its done wonders for me and my life stresses.
“It wasn’t until we set up our second wall VauxWall West Climbing Centre that the business became profitable and it awoke my view that actually, climbing walls can do quite well and we generated the funds to build eight other walls.”
Jeremy took the leap to build the second wall in London, near Vauxhall Station, in 2013, when he left his job after 30 years spent working as a banker buying and selling oil and energy businesses for American bank JP Morgan.
He added: “When I went to London, I was only going to go for a year or two so I could make enough money to follow my passions in the Lake District.
“I had always wanted to set up a business and climbing was at the top of that list. My mission and the company’s mission, has been to introduce others to climbing and I suppose that’s been a long, life-held ambition.
“It’s something I was able to do by setting up more climbing walls and getting people through the doors. So I took on the lease and set up VauxWall and it became quite successful.
“From there we carried on growing the business and we now have eight walls in London and we also have walls in Lancaster and Preston, so we have three in the north also and now 11 centres overall.”
Lakeland Climbing Centres now employs around 180 people and has a turnover of around £10 million per year – and Jeremy said the business has seen a huge increase in the popularity of climbing over the years.
He said: “It’s been a dramatic change, when I started climbing it was very much so a minority sport. It was mostly men rather than women doing it, it was all outdoors and it was a cold, grim activity in the winter and you’d spend all summer dodging rain in the Lake District.
“But if you look at it today, the British Mountaineering Council has recorded over one million people in the country that actively climb indoors.
“For us, in 2014 we had around 300 people a day through the door and we now have over 2,000 people a day coming into our centres. So it has grown around 30 per cent every year for the past 10 to 15 years.
“In London alone when I started climbing there was only three centres in London and there’s now 35, so it has taken off massively. It’s now just like going to the gym.
“Climber’s back in the day wouldn’t get a job and they’d sign on the dole and they were called UB40 climbers. They used to hitch everywhere and they’d sleep under trees and in barns and their whole purpose was to climb every day and that was the culture, and I did it before I went to London.
“But now, I’d say around 70 per cent of my London customers have no interest in outdoor climbing, it’s only an indoor sport for them.
“With that our customers now expect much better facilities, they want heat in the winter and cool in the summer and a cafe and gym. So the expectations have gone up significantly and the cost of running a centre has gone up with that.”
For many climbing centres across the country, the impact of COVID-19 and the lockdowns was catastrophic – and for Lakeland Climbing Centres, it proved a very tough time too.
Jeremy said: “It was pretty awful. We could see society was beginning to shut down even before the first lockdown and we had to make the decision to close our climbing walls because they are social spaces.
“To see them go from busy and full of people enjoying our walls to empty was horrible. But the most stressful thing for me was looking after our staff.
“I’ve got some savings and I’d committed to supporting the business and keeping staff paid even though we went into the lockdown, but I looked at it all and at my savings and I thought, well, I can do this for about three months.
“At that point we would have run out of money and I would have had to lay staff off. Luckily, a week later, Rishi Sunak came out with furlough, which for me and my staff was life saving.
“Without that the business would have gone bankrupt. We also had some great support from local councils and some of our landlords were fantastic and told us we didn’t have to pay rent so we could get through it.
“But we’ve only just paid our COVID lone back. The hangover has affected many companies for years after and it’s something we’ve all been struggling with.
“I call it long COVID for business, because there are a lot of people out there struggling to pay those loans back still.”
Despite facing COVID struggles – Jeremy said running the business has brought him a lot of joy over the years.
As well as looking after Lakeland Climbing Centres, Jeremy has also invested in several other small climbing companies and is working in partnership with The Depot Climbing Centres and is currently supporting work to build a new £3 million climbing centre in Manchester.
In 2014 he also set up the Lakeland Climbing Foundation – a charity that aims to support people of all ages financially to get into the outdoors.
He added: “For me it’s the little things. So let’s say we have a Scout group come in, those guys are my oxygen. I see these kids come in and you can just see the enthusiasm on their faces, it’s fantastic.
“The other day we had someone come in a wheelchair to Kendal. So the instructors put a climb on the wall for them and helped lift them to the top of the wall and back down.
“For them it made their day, you could see the excitement on their face for doing it and that is the wind in my sails that keeps me going.
“The other thing that keeps me going is when my staff come up and say Jeremy, I love working here, that’s just wonderful.
“Yes, it’s hard work and stressful and sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this but most days I really really enjoy it. I don’t take a salary and I don’t run the business to make money for myself, it all gets ploughed back into the business.”
Jeremy added that for Lakeland Climbing Centres – staying on top of growth within the industry was an essential part of their future planning.
He said: “We’ve just spent half a million re-doing Kendal Wall and adding a new bouldering area to it, but it is an unusual wall.
“Kendal only has a population of 30,000 people, whereas other walls have city populations to support them and yet we have a community that supports the wall and keeps it going in such a small town.
“I am proud that we have a national leading climbing wall in a small town that works so well, I know people do travel up to two hours to get here too.
“But with all these walls being built all over the country, there’s likely to be an overbuild. It’s happened in London already, people see our business and others and in those circumstances, you know a number of walls will go bankrupt.
“So what’s important to me is the Lakeland is not one of those sets of walls. It can be quite challenging because you’ve got to be a cost leader, so you have to renegotiate your rental agreements and run things efficiently and that takes a lot of time.
“But there will be a natural consolidation in the industry as well. We’re the largest in the country at the moment with 11 walls, but in five years time there will be one or two national champions with 30 or 50 climbing walls.
“We would like to be part of that somehow, so either merging with other companies or becoming part of a larger network or carrying on building our own walls, so we have got to be alert to growth and be part of that change.”
Jeremy said that private equity is now becoming involved with climbing centres and while some see it as a bad thing, he added that he felt it could be positive for customers and the wider industry.
He said: “A lot of people who set up walls around the country from my generation will quite frankly never make a lot of money off them and a lot of people are facing nasty decisions over closing down or getting a million pound loan to revamp their wall and they’re just not up for that.
“You used to be able to build a climbing wall for £100,000 to £150,000 and now a really basic wall you’re looking at around £700,000 to £1 million pounds
“So the other thing that has happened is private equity has got involved, so with sizeable amounts of money going into wall operators in the country, there’s now an expectation on the high return on capital.
“All of a sudden these walls are going to have to go from cottage industries run for the customers and the wall owners to businesses that have to generate a proper return.
“Some people think it’s bad, but personally I think the climbing wall industry needs more investment capital, so if we have to get it from private equity, so be it.
“I think it will be good for the customer to have more walls across the country and have them built at higher specifications.”
Amid the changing landscape of the sport – Jeremy said for him, a perfect wall is all about balance.
He said: “I think it’s got to appeal to everybody. At the top end it’s got to appeal to the very hardest of climbers and at the bottom end it’s got to appear to the beginner and be engaging and interesting for children.
“But the critical thing is having staff that welcome everybody. Having staff that have a strong work ethic and are loyal is like finding nuggets of gold, and you’ve got to grab hold of them and look after them and nurture their careers.
“We have a phrase we put on our walls and that’s the best climber is the one having the most fun. What I want is for the beginner and the expert to come into our walls and enjoy themselves the exact same.”
