Fans of the Shepton Mallet parkrun will be disappointed to hear that its return has been delayed along with parkrun 5k events across England due to a lack of support from landowners.

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

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

In a statement this morning (May 21) 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 June 5, 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 June 26."

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, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Sport England.

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.

Founder Sinton-Hewitt said in a 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."