Scottish Slimmers has gone bust, leaving thousands of members out of pocket and more than 30 employees out of work. 

The organisation, which operates 140 branches around the country, confirmed that it ceased trading as of midnight on Friday.

Around 30 headquarters employees and coaches across the nation have been left out of work after all Scottish Slimmers classes were suspended.

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Refunds on membership passes cannot be provided but the firm said that all existing members affected will be given free access to the Scottish Slimmers online service instead.

Amanda Boyle, chief executive of Scottish Slimmers Ltd, said it had “become impossible to sustain a model where the costs of running the class network are twice the level of the annual revenue generated by these classes”.

She said: “This has been an incredibly difficult decision to make as I know how much the network of classes means to our members and how our community of members has valued the support of their class coaches in their healthy living and weight loss programmes.

“Many of our coaches have years of enthusiastic and loyal service and I understand that this decision is a very difficult one for them.”