RUNNERS in Swindon will have to wait a little longer before lacing up their trainers for Saturday morning parkruns.

Landowners have given the okay for both of Swindon’s events to take place for the first time since March 2020, but the total number of 250 able to do so across the UK falls short of the number needed for the hugely-popular 5k events to resume.

There are two 5k parkruns held on Saturday mornings in Swindon, at Lydiard Park and Seven Fields in Penhill.

The latter has been given the green light by Central Swindon North Parish Council, while Swindon Borough Council has done likewise at Lydiard. Organisers met with the council’s Events Safety Advisory Group this week 

Bosses at parkrun UK had been hoping to restart across the country on June 5 but admitted defeat this morning.

They say they need a majority of events to be able to go ahead to spread what they expect to be a high demand by runners and to avoid overcrowding. 

A statement read: "With more than three million registered parkrunners across England, and around 300,000 people taking part on a typical weekend, opening a small subset of parkruns is not viable."

With a number of landowners responding positively, parkrun UK will now target Saturday, June 26 to resume all 5k events across England. A decision will be made regarding the go ahead for this new date on Friday, June 11.

Nick Pearson, parkrun's global CEO, said: "Although it is disappointing not to be able to return on June 5, 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 June 26.”

Concern has been raised nationally that local authorities being too cautious about giving permission for the timed runs is both delaying a healthy activity in the open air and could lose the momentum which has seen 729 local runs set up around the UK since the founding of parkrun in London in 2002. 

London 2012 supremo Sebastian Coe tweeted: “We should be proud of how parkrun UK has helped make the world healthier and happier. It is now time to ensure it has a future. We must act to save this great health and wellbeing charity.” 

Marlborough Common, Southwick Country Park and Salisbury parkruns are currently on the national list of events given landowner permission – but Chippenham parkrun is not.