A number of Welsh councils have said they have no plans to charge fees for popular Parkrun events here after a decision to impose charges by an English council led to complaints from Olympians Kelly Holmes and Paula Radcliffe.
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Over 19,500 people have signed a petition asking that the parkrun near Bristol be allowed to continue at Little Stoke Park but on Tuesday the parish council voted six to four in favour of Little Stoke parkrun contributing financially to the park, becoming the first – out of 850 events worldwide – to charge parkrun a fee for use of grounds.
And in Northumberland, where the run takes place at 9am on Saturday morning in Druridge Bay Country Park, Red Row, Morpeth, the council said there would be no charge introduced.
Graham Evans MP, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for running, said he had written to the council to suggest alternative ways of fundraising towards the maintenance of the park.
“All the runners should turn up and run at the same time without parkrun banners and see how they get charged then”, he said. In just over a year we have had 700 children complete the 2k free weekly event and it’s the highlight of the week for runners and volunteers alike.
Parkrun operates hundreds of weekly 5km runs across the United Kingdom every week.
“The safety and well-being of parkrunners and other park users is paramount and we are very concerned that this might be jeopardised by the volume of people wishing to run at Little Stoke on Saturday”.
After the announcement old medal-winning runner Paula Radcliffe tweeted: “Am totally against this short-sighted decision”.
“Parkrun has had unprecedented success in engaging the least active and encouraging them to exercise regularly”, he added.
When contacted, Bury’s organiser Steve Pretty said local parkrun organisers had been asked to refer further enquiries to the group’s head of communications.
Parkrun event co-director Becky Bushnell said the decision was “incredibly disappointing”.
There are no plans for the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council to charge parkrun for their weekly events.
A meeting of Bradley Stoke Town Council (BSTC) on 9th March was informed that South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) has “approved in principle” a “hire of open space” application from parkrun to use the Three Brooks LNR from April 2016.
In a statement on the event’s parkrun page, organisers said: “It is a fundamental principle of parkrun that there should be no barriers to participation and events should always be free”.
“Steve Cram is a huge supporter of mass participation events and is a keen advocate of parkrun along with Brendan Foster”.
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Brown said that parkrun’s attendance had grown from 50-60 people to more than 300.
