Blackpool Welcomes Agni Yoga, a Community-Led Studio With Personal Roots

Agni Yoga has opened at 19-21 Red Bank Road in Bispham, bringing a new yoga-only space to a stretch of Blackpool that already has an active studio scene. The studio says it is rooted in community, integrity and personal growth, and is launching with an introductory offer of 21 days for £21.

At the center of the business is Charlotte Dugdale, 37, of Hawthorne Road in Thornton. Dugdale started her career supporting people with drug and alcohol addiction in prisons across the North West before moving into social care, but said the pressure of that work took a toll on her mental wellbeing. She has also spoken about living with an OCD diagnosis. Yoga, which she found in her mid-20s, became the turning point that eventually pushed her toward opening her own studio.

Dugdale’s path into teaching was not short. Five years after first finding Ashtanga yoga, she took a year’s sabbatical to travel to Rishikesh, India, where she completed teacher training. She later built out 500 hours of training that included breathwork, meditation, philosophy and traditional Ashtanga practice. That background now shapes Agni Yoga’s pitch as a space for all abilities, built around movement, breathing and belonging rather than a narrow fitness formula.

The studio’s offer is broad enough to reach both newer students and regular practitioners. Its website lists Rocket, Hatha, Ashtanga and hot yoga, along with classes, workshops, retreats and teacher training. That mix suggests Agni Yoga is aiming for more than drop-in traffic. It is trying to create a local practice community that can hold beginners, committed students and teachers-in-training under one roof.

That positioning matters in Bispham, where yoga businesses are already clustered along and around Red Bank Road. Yoga Rise Blackpool, founded in 2016, offers aerial yoga, heated classes, teen yoga, yoga sculpt, yoga for cyclists and beginner foundational courses. Yoga Blackpool at 1A Red Bank Road has also been described as Blackpool’s first dedicated yoga space, while Crescent Yoga Studio in Lytham St Annes has said it was the first dedicated yoga studio on the Fylde Coast.

Agni Yoga’s arrival adds another option, but its real distinction is the founder story behind it. Dugdale is not presenting the studio as a generic wellness venture. She is framing it as a response to burnout, lived experience and the need for a more supportive, community-led place to practice. In a crowded local market, that kind of authenticity may be the clearest edge of all.