Since March 2020 the well-known Parkrun events had been forced to close due to the sudden outbreak of Corona Virus within the United Kingdom.
The Parkrun, entailing of a 5km course set out by volunteers, is run by a community organisation, and comprises a series of running events around world which take place weekly.
While the rest of the UK gradually reopened following the initial lockdowns, the reopening presented a huge challenge to the park run. As these events would have to be run in a COVID-19 safe manner. Government guidance had allowed for the reopening of Parkrun events from March 2021, and it had been hoped that Parkrun could return in early June 2021. However, despite putting in place extensive restrictions by establishing a COVID-19 framework, further difficulties remained.
One of these difficulties was that parkrun events are run over private and local authority land, but many landowners were initially reluctant to grant approval for the runs to go ahead. This is as if the majority of park runs were not opened at the same time the events which did open would be severely overwhelmed with the vast quantities of visitors, eager to take park. This presenting a challenge for parkrun as opening most of the park runs at the same time, safely and orderly, would be quite difficult. Announcing a delay to the planned reopening on 5 June, Nick Pearson, Parkrun Global CEO explained that “We will continue to work hard with landowners over the coming weeks to secure the permissions needed to return at the end of June”.
It was only thanks to the tireless work of the organisers and a groundswell of support for the popular events, including political pressure, that parkrun events could restart.
So, on the 24th of July the majority of parkruns within England restarted with great enthusiasm. Provided there is not an unexpected worsening of the pandemic, parkrun events can now hopefully, return to being a weekly event in the lives of the many passionate supporters.
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