Ukactive supports any measure which proves successful at getting people more active. At a time when we are faced by the most inactive generation in all of human history, community-driven grassroots success stories like parkrun should be celebrated, rewarded, and held up as pillars of good practice.
We can see through the outpouring of support for parkrun that communities, advocates and runners are flocking to keep the events free, with good reason.
There’s a wider issue here, however. No local authority in the UK wants – through any measure – to discourage the use of their facilities or to prevent a barrier to a scheme which promotes health and wellbeing of the population.
The fact is, local authorities are facing very real pressures to keep their parks open, well maintained and accessible to the public. The situation for some local authorities over the coming year – if we’re not very careful – is that they’ll have to make the harrowing choice between keeping parks maintained or keeping health and social care services functioning.
This underlying debate, which has been brewing for some time, now gives us the perfect opportunity to open a dialogue between providers, government, local authorities and the general public to build a robust forward plan for how we will protect our parks and make them safe, sustainable and enjoyable for future generations.
It’s a debate we need to have and one we look forward to facilitating, along with the physical activity sector.