Serving the Teesside Business Community | 25
Joanne is leading the boutique
fitness revolution in the UK.
until five years after her return to Teesside,
Joanne began to play an increasingly
prominent role in the business, progressing
to director of nursing for the fast-growing
business by the time she was 26. By 1997,
when Bannatyne sold the group for £47
million, Quality Care Homes had grown to
number 62 across the country.
By then they had already started to build
a new empire, this time children’s day
nurseries under the name of Just Learning.
The first, in Darlington, was quickly followed
by a second in Ingleby Barwick. Soon there
were 26 day nurseries across the north of
England.
It was there, in Ingleby Barwick, where
the Bannatyne’s health club chain began. She
explains: “I wanted to open a health club. We
had spare land alongside one of our children’s
nurseries in Ingleby Barwick so we just
thought ‘Why don’t we build one here?’
“I went down to London and looked at a
few health clubs there but it was the Health
Spa and Racquet Club in Chiswick that was
my inspiration. It was so far from the spit
and sawdust gyms that were common at
the time. So that was it. We opened our
first health club and it worked, and then the
second, third and fourth quickly followed. We
just rolled them out and kept going.”
She is understandably keen to point out
that this was no one-man show. “Because
the health club chain is called Bannatyne’s
everyone thinks it was Duncan who was
responsible for its success. But he says in
his book that it wasn’t like that. At the outset
he wanted to call it McCue’s, and it was me
who said we should call it Bannatyne’s as he
was better known than me.
“We were a team, us and the other
directors. Duncan looked after the financial
side of the business, while I looked after
the operational side. Putting together
environments comes naturally to me. I look
for inspiration and build on it. The truth is
that we never did anything new, we were
just good at looking at what already existed
within a sector and improving it.
“I just loved the fitness industry. I found
it easy after the complications of running
nursing homes with all the issues that come
with operating 24 hours a day, seven days
a week. It wasn’t a piece of cake but the
fitness industry is such a pleasure.”
She readily gives credit, however, where
she believes it is due. “Duncan was an
absolute driving force. He always wanted to
grow, so it was exciting.”
When, in January 2005, Bannatyne was
asked to join BBC2’s Dragon’s Den he
found the fame Joanne says he had craved.
Although the couple married the following
year, his television break was the start of the
end of their business and life partnership.
While her husband spent increasing amounts
of time in London, Joanne remained on
Teesside, where their children were settled in
school and their business headquarters were
based.
Together for 18 years
and married for six until
they divorced in 2012, she
comments: “Duncan liked
London life, he liked fame
and he liked girls who like
people with loads of money.
Because he was wealthy
and becoming famous it
was a toxic combination. It’s
no good having a business if
nobody knows about it but
that’s the only reason I’ll do
things like this interview,
but Duncan wanted to
be famous, he craved
recognition. If I’d wanted
that too then maybe I’d have
stuck with him through thick
and thin, but that wasn’t for
me.”
Instead, along with their
two teenage children, Joanne began a new
life, and soon began her current venture.
She teamed up with ex-Marine Lee Howe,
who had already opened a CrossFit unit on
Teesside Industrial Estate, close to Ingleby
Barwick.
Initially a reluctant attendee at Howe’s
CrossFit sessions, she was quickly won
over. So much so that she opened her own
CrossFit facility behind the stands of the
“There’s no rivalry,
I’m not a threat to Duncan.
I want to put the skills
I developed with him to
good use.”
former Darlington FC ground, now home to
Mowden Park Rugby Club, while she’s now
in partnership with Lee in three more, in
Hartlepool, Durham and Team Valley.
The pair’s latest fitness enterprise is their
own brand WattFitness studio. Following
a six-figure investment in state-of-theart equipment, they launched WattCycle,
WattDefine and WattSpin at Teesside
In