Blackpool and Lytham Parkrun 5k events delayed again despite confirmation runs can resume

The events, scheduled to take place at Stanley Park and Lytham Hall, were included in more than 250 parkrun events that had received landowner permission to return.

However, this falls short of the critical mass needed to prevent overwhelming of those that have been go-ahead - with more than three three million registered park runners across England.

Parkrun organisers said that with around 300,000 people taking part on a typical weekend, only opening a small subset of park runs is not viable.

There are ongoing talks with the landowners that are withholding permission and organisers hope to target a start date of Saturday, June 26 for all parkrun events across England.

This new date will be confirmed on Friday, June 11.

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.”

Parkrun has had legal permission to return from March, as part of Step 1 of the government's lockdown roadmap.

The events were suspended in the country after the first Covid-19 lockdown was implemented in March 2020.