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May 2021

Last Updated: 21/05/2021

Health

Parkrun delays restarting 5k runs by three weeks

by Natalie Bowen

| 21 May, 2021

As not all landowners across England have granted permission for the weekly runs to resume, the charity is concerned that those that were allowed to go ahead as planned on June 5 would be overwhelmed.

A Parkrun in Harrogate from 2015.

Runners in the Harrogate district will have to wait a little longer to get back to parkrun after the charity announced it is delaying its resumption of the weekly free 5k runs by another three weeks.

Although Harrogate Borough Council has given permission for the Saturday morning events to start on June 5 on the Stray, in Conyngham Hall in Knaresborough and the National Trust greenlit its return to Fountains Abbey, not all landowners across the country have agreed.

Parkrun organisers confirmed that more than 250 permissions have been granted but this was below the "critical mass" it wanted to reach to avoid overwhelming the smaller number of events that could go ahead.

Pre-covid there were 589 locations hosting parkruns in England. All events are run by volunteers.

The charity has set June 26 as the new date to resume all its 5k events across the country collectively and hopes many more landowners will grant permission by that time.

It will make another decision regarding the go-ahead for this new date on Friday June 11.

Nick Pearson, parkrun's global CEO, said:

“We will continue to work hard with landowners over the coming weeks to secure the permissions needed to return at the end of June.

"We are incredibly grateful to all of the landowners who have granted events permission to return so far, and for the groundswell of support for parkrun over recent days.

"Although it is disappointing not to be able to return on 5 June, we are still optimistic that we can return parkrun events to nearly 600 communities across England very soon. We will do everything we can to ensure events restart on 26 June.”

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Harrogate junior parkrun, a 2k run for children aged four to 14, resumed on the Stray on April 12.

https://twitter.com/Harrogatejnrpr/status/1381317401057370112

A parkrun spokesperson said:

"Operating under a government approved COVID-19 Framework, and with significant success restarting the junior 2k event series, as well as the vital need for people to be active and social outdoors, the time is now right for the return of Saturday morning 5k events."

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Parkrun delays restarting 5k runs by three weeks

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