The Future of Park Runs in Doubt

Who Are ParkRun? Parkrun UK is an organisation who organise free, weekly 5km timed runs in local parks. They are designed to be open to everyone and are free. The idea being to encourage as many people as possible to get running and get fit in their local community.

As the events are not paid for, Parkrun is funded by different partners including organisations like Fitbit, InterSport and Vitality health life insurance.

How Many People Run?

The statistics of who gets involved is staggering, highlighting the popularity of such events:

1,002,746 runners take part in over 65,101 events across 406 locations.

Quite a devopment from the 13 runners who started it all off in one park.

Bristol Council the Catalyst for Closure?

It was reported however in April of this year that Parkrun has had to close down its operations in Bristol’s Little Stoke Park following a dispute with the local council. The events had taken place there since 2012. This is the first time Parkrun have closed down an existing event.

The council has insisted that for the run to go ahead each runner would have to pay £1 to compete. They say that this is essential as the runners would damage paths and car parks and they were paying nothing towards the cost of maintaining them. So the message from the council was clear, the run could take place but only if a financial contribution towards the park was made.

The Challenge

Parkrun refused to introduce the £1 charge as it would seriously compromise what was at the core of their being-giving anybody of whatever means the chance to run for free. As Tom Williams from Parkrun said “Stoke Gifford Parish Council’s initial request for us to charge £1 per week went completely against our most fundamental principles and, as a free event, their subsequently revised requirement for Parkrun to contribute financially to the maintenance of the park is also something we’re unable to do.”

From this it will be interesting to see what other councils do in response.