Parkrun and Public Spaces

The London Marathon has finished for another year, and for over 30 years hundreds and thousands of people have experienced what is arguably one of the world’s greatest marathons to race. Though how do you prepare for such an event as a marathon? People have come up with all sorts of plans and the latest training advice that makes a marathon easier to train for, but a cornerstone of any effective marathon plan will be running a certain number of miles per week. Inevitably this will lead to people running through parks, shared public spaces in cities, woodlands, areas of outstanding natural beauty, etc.  There’s no doubt that wherever people will be running, they will most likely be sharing that place with people who are not running. This leads to a question of what the purpose of public spaces are for: sport, fitness classes, relaxing, walking? There is no easy answer and anyone who goes to a park will be able to see the whole variety of different activities that I have just mentioned.

How public space is used is always going to create some tension, as it is natural for people to have differing views.  Global cities, like New York or London for instance, usually receive a lot of press attention for public projects like the London Garden Bridge and whether they are really necessary for that city. So it was with some shock that I heard about a small park in a suburb of Bristol in North Gloucestershire, becoming the centre of national media coverage about whether a parkrun should take place there. This was none other than the Little Stoke Parkrun (LSP), which will cease to be run on Saturday 28^th May following the local parish council’s decision to start charging Parkrun for organising this weekly event. This has led to Parkrun stating they will find ways of challenging the Parish Council’s decision. The current situation is that it looks like LSP will be moved to a nature reserve in Bradley Stoke.

This disagreement between Stoke Gifford Parish Council (SGP) and Parkrun was only about one small sporting event, though it symbolises a broader discussion about how people should be allowed to exercise in public spaces; especially if they are doing it through an organisation rather than on their own. SGP argue that the reason for charging LSP is for the following reasons:

-          To help maintain the paths of the Little Stoke Park.

-          That the people participating in Parkrun monopolise the park, as well as its car park.

-          That the local football club contribute towards the park through paying a charge.

Nor is SGP alone in charging organisations to use its park. The Royal Parks in London charge a range of fees for people/ organisations running physical fitness training sessions. British Military Fitness has been cited as an organisation that pays for the use of training people in parks, and therefore this should extend to Parkrun. Though Parkrun continues to grow, some have pointed to the fact that it is yet to attract people from a whole range of diverse backgrounds.  These points made above do have some relevance to the discussion about who should use public spaces, but they miss a vital point about Parkruns in general. Namely that they are free and Parkrun is a not for profit organisation. There is no sinister corporation making money off helpless members of the public at the expense of parks across the country. If anything Parkruns could be attracting more people to parks, who would not normally of thought to use it as a local race event. The other factor that is critically missed about Parkrun is that it helps people who may have never exercised before or fear taking part in a group activity. Furthermore, there are a variety of apps and plans that cater for people to build up to or race their first 5k. I think the most important thing to consider here is that Parkrun does not charge its runners for attending these weekly events, and that is its distinguishing feature from other events that take place in parks across the country. So we can see that Parkrun is not a money making corporation trying to make money off people trying to run, but is an enabler that allows thousands of people to experience their first race in their local area- for free!

This is where I think the idea of introducing a charge to what was once a free event has long-term negative effect on sport. Britain is currently going through a challenging time of acknowledging that it is one of, if not, the fattest nation in Europe. Current thinking about obesity points not just to people eating the wrong food, but also barriers to people being able to exercise on a regular basis. For people who are keen exercise or running enthusiasts the answer would be to just go out and find a place/ organisation to exercise at. However if you are someone is overweight or coping with recovering from illness/ addiction, as well as not having run before; what would the effect of having to pay a minimum charge to turn up to an event be? My view is that a charge to run 5k with other people will put a lot of undecided or nervous first time runners off, thus closing a vital avenue that would have enabled someone to begin their fitness journey. Even if we ignore someone feeling nervous or self conscientious about running for the first time, what about a person who is on a low income or lives on a disability benefit wage? Surely by asking someone who cannot afford a gym membership to then pay for a parkrun will also have the outcome of stopping people from attempting their first 5k.

An interesting book that I have come across in my research for this post, is Professor Michael Sandel’s What Money Can’t Buy. Sandel argues that introducing market forces into every aspect of human life can lead to a corrosive effect on the very activity the market force is meant to increase, as well as being unfair. A rich person may be able to afford to pay for Parkruns throughout the year, whereas someone on a low income wage may not be able to do this. This again reinforces the point that Parkrun allows everyone to participate, not just those who can afford it. To be clear, I am not saying that this means the debate about how parks are funded is over. I am simply trying to show that we should be aware of introducing a dangerous precedent into the world of running and park activities. Sandel’s book does not offer any easy answers, but it does point towards the fact that market forces could creep into other areas of park life; should we  decide to start charging families for using the playground in a park.

Another interesting aspect of the Little Stoke Parkrun incident was the issue of how the debate was framed and by whom. SGP may have acted with the best intentions, but I question whether they were really acting for all of the residents within the area. The council has received more than a 1,000 critical emails after deciding to charge the Parkrun and more than 35,000 people have signed a petition opposing this charge. Whilst I am sure that a lot of those 35,000 signatures came from outside of Gloucestershire, it does make me wonder if those councillors did act for their constituents or just saw an easy way of making money off a fitness organisation. My reasoning stems from the fact that politicians/ councillors (take your pick) tend to operate on reasons that would suit their needs more than those of the general public. London offers good examples of how politicians have failed to take into account public feeling about major projects or how they want their local public spaces to be run:

• The Garden Bridge: seems to be a costly project in an area of London that is already well served by bridges and seems to have a rising bill attached to it.

•  Hampsted Heath Cafe: was nearly sold off to the Benugo cafe chain after the City of London Corporation ignored public feeling about the owners running the original cafe.

Both these examples highlight the way public money may not be channelled to causes that people actually want it to be used for. If our parks and public places are facing a squeeze on how they are funded or there is a struggle to maintain them properly; surely the right thing to do would be to put a hold on expensive projects that stop this funding from going to exsiting and valuble public spaces within the community? It seems to me that in the current climate Government- at both a local and national level- are more concerned with projects that will look good in the newspapers, rather than helping people improve their quality of life.  I would never argue that running is the most exciting spectacle to watch from the perspective of the average person, however I would say that if it benefits a lot of people then the government should be more inclined to fund it than the grandiose project(s) mentioned above.

There are no easy arguments to how parks and public spaces should be funded, as well as who should be using them. However the Little Stoke Parkrun incident shows a worrying tendency by government to plug a shortfall in funding, by charging people who are simply trying to improve their lives. It would be arrogant for this post to try and attempt to understand the complexities of maintaining public spaces across the country, nor does it try to deny the funding pressure that parks across the nation face. What I would like you to think about is who makes those decisions in your area about how your park or public space is used and are you happy with it? In the current era of so-called austerity it can be easy to simplify everything down to a cost benefit analysis, but the Good Gym and the Running Charity beg to differ from this negative world view. They show a vision where simply putting one foot in front of the other can make life better not just for the person running, but also for the people around them. I’m sure this video of Bailey Matthews- an eight year old boy with cerebral palsy who has run 50 park runs- finishing his first triathlon shows that sometimes the human spirit doesn’t need a bundle of cash to feel better or a cost figure attached to it, but simply to see that we can achieve things that we never believed we could do.