Fans of Richmond's many parkrun events will be disappointed to hear that their return has been delayed along with events across England due to a lack of support from landowners.

More than 250 events in England obtained landowner permission to return, however this fell far short of the number needed for it to return on June 5 as hoped.

This news comes following the Royal Parks' announcement that it would not allow the 5k runs to go ahead in Bushy and Richmond Parks before June 21 at the earliest due to high numbers.

Parkrun UK is now aiming to resume all 5k events across England on Saturday 26 June, and a final decision will be made on this on Friday 11 June.

In a statement this morning 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."

The three-week delay comes as many permission requests got caught up in "unnecessary red tape and lengthy internal bureaucracy at a local level", despite widespread support nationally from the UK government, MPs on both sides of Parliament, DCMS and Sport England.

Many high-profile supporters joined the rallying cry for parkrun to return.

Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston backed parkrun's proposed return date in a letter at the end of April.

Earlier this week Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called on London borough councils and other landowners to join him in supporting the return of parkrun.

He said: "Parkrun is a London success story. Originating in 2004 in Bushy Park, it is now delivered in 22 countries worldwide, with over seven million participants, all supported by brilliant teams of volunteer organisers.

"The Government has approved their COVID-19 framework to restart events across the country and I welcome the fact they are now keen to return on Saturday, June 5."

Parkrun organisers take the view that all the 5k running events need to start on the same date, to prevent races becoming overwhelmed with extra runners.

Sinton-Hewitt said in his letter: "Ever since the first lockdown began, I have been worried about whether or not parkrun would survive.

"It is no exaggeration to say that the next few days and weeks will be critical for the entire parkrun movement.

"It has been humbling to hear parkrun referred to as 'one of the greatest public health initiatives in the history of the United Kingdom' in the corridors of Public Health and elsewhere.

"But now is not the time for platitudes or empty gestures. We must all do everything we can to ensure that parkrun is here to be enjoyed for generations to come.

Related stories:

- Parkrun founder looks for support after early restart hopes blocked by Royal Parks

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