Two Cumbrian gym owners have turned their research into how best to keep their premises coronavirus-free into a brand new business venture.

Barrie Mark Scougal and Michael Quirk, who each own their own personal training gym and fitness centres in Carlisle and Workington, have in the past month put together a new joint business, Cv19Busters Cumbria.

Barrie, who owns Barrie Mark Fitness and Nutrition Centre in Carlisle, joined forces with Michael, who runs Eat Train Live in Workington, when they both found themselves looking into how best to keep their gyms disinfected once the lockdown was lifted.

“We were both digging about, doing research on the internet, and we both came across this 'cannon fogger', from Forth Engineering in west Cumbria,” Barrie said.

Forth has also designed this vapour cannon cleaning technology to be carried by robots to decontaminate inaccessible or hard-to-reach places.

The cannon cleans surfaces using medical-grade disinfectant much quicker than normal cleaning methods.

This has helped Barrie and Michael to keep their costs lower than some larger companies offering commercial cleaning services.

“We can do a 1,500 square foot gym in minutes,” Barrie said.

Barrie and Michael wanted local businesses to be able to inspire confidence in their staff and customers that their premises are as clean as possible in the coming months, given that anxiety over coronavirus is likely to be high for a long time to come.

“We’ll leave a certificate for businesses to show when the disinfecting took place, just to give customers that bit more confidence,” Barrie said.

Originally just planning to buy the fogger machine for their own gyms, Barrie and Michael quickly found themselves inundated with requests once word got around that they had access to this innovative kit.

“We’ve had enquiries from as far away as Jersey and Aberdeen now,” Barrie said. “Obviously we can’t travel at the moment because that would go against the lockdown – we’re keeping it local.”

Barrie added that the name is “a bit tongue-in-cheek".

“When we’ve got our kit on we do look like Ghostbusters,” he said.

Barrie and Michael’s gyms are still going strong using online platforms to reach their clients. They are not sure how long the Cv19Busters venture will last at the moment. “We’ll play it by ear, we’ll keep it going as long as we can help out other small businesses like us,” Barrie said.

Email enquires@cv19busterscumbria.com to get in touch with Barrie or Michael.

Click here to go to the Cv19Busters Cumbria website.