THE first Health & Wellness event has taken place in the Winter Garden in Ilkley with positive feedback from both exhibitors and visitors.

Organised by the Ilkley Business Improvement District under its Discover Ilkley brand, the event brought together the crème de la crème of the town’s health and wellbeing professionals to showcase their services and values.

Ilkley has long been known as a place to boost health and fitness, and the aim of the venture was to highlight the individual businesses who make the town such a mecca for those wanting to improve their body and mind as well as encouraging people to improve their fitness and enhance their overall wellbeing.

Twenty-two local health and wellness businesses participated in the event ranging from gyms and fitness studios, activewear stockists, stores selling luxury products with health benefits, movement and pain relief providers to health and beauty salons.

The Hearing Suite, which opened its Ilkley store on Saturday, used the forum to mark its official launch.

The schedule of the day included a live small group training session with Dillons Premium Fitness Training, as well as a reflexology demonstration from Fresh Health & Beauty, a Pilates demonstration from GK Physiotherapy & Pilates and a lesson in how to create a terrarium from Moss & Moor.

There were industry speakers representing Ilkley Complementary Therapies and Yorkshire Flower Essences, LFW Podiatry, The Bath House and Clip N’ Climb.

Ilkley’s top class sporting facilities also attended, with Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club and Ilkley Lido & Swimming Pool highlighting their sports offerings and children were invited to take part in a fun circuit training course.

Lisa Drake, Ilkley BID Project Coordinator, said: “We’re really happy with how the event well. All the exhibitors put in a tremendous amount of effort and their displays looked fantastic.

“One of Ilkley BID’s aims is to support local businesses across the town so we were really happy to hold this event to showcase and promote all the amazing health, beauty and wellness businesses that we have in Ilkley as well as highlighting the importance of physical and mental wellbeing. We’re delighted that some of the businesses have already reported gaining new customers as a result of their participation.”

The team hopes to run the event again next year and interested parties are invited to register their interest by emailing Lisa at: info@ilkleybid.co.uk.

For more information about Ilkley BID visit: www.ilkleybid.co.uk. For the Discover Ilkley visit: www.discoverilkley.co.uk.