Planned return of Southport Parkrun delayed

The popular Southport Parkrun will not return on 5 June as previously planned.

Southport Parkrun is a weekly 5k race through Hesketh Park, organised as part of a national initiative, every Saturday morning. The event welcomes anyone from serious runners to casual walkers.

The national organisers of Parkrun say they have permission from 250 venues to restart, but this “falls far short of the critical mass needed to prevent overwhelming those that have been given the go ahead”.

The Southport Parkrun appears on the list of events that have been given permission to restart.

The organisation will now look to resume event on 26 June.

Nick Pearson, Parkrun 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.”