To think the National Trust should not let Park Run volunteers marshal the cars at a NT property

If what I have been told is correct - and she was quite clear, and was also reading from a Calendar - then yes, the NT are almost totally for blame for funnelling general visitors (paying remember) right towards the now shared (and almost only) car park, and the start/finish and part of the PR route.

(Did the Parkrun spokesperson mention this in the now removed post?)

This will lead to more people parking on the bits they still can on/off Limetree and therefore not paying... Seems crazy!

So it's starting to look like this is a problem of the National Trust's making?

OK! And agreed @MetaMette , I have now rung the Park, and it is a relatively recent change; the former tarmac car park, is now the "Accessible" car park ("as a third has been given over to staff") and everything - including the PR participants - is directed to the Event field, and yes, there is a barrier in place.

Wow! I'm so surprised at this - and of course there will be Parkrun conflict.

(Taking a drive out there tomorrow to see it in person, and see what happens when trying to drive straight down the main road.)

(It was me who posted the map/s, but I took "Accessible" to mean that this includes an accessible section, not that that is all it is!)

That's been the case the last few times we've visited, they block off at the junction by the cricket pitch and direct people towards what used to be called the overflow car park. They do this even when they've left the barrier down so you can't actually get in!

Someone posted the maps earlier and you'll see that it's labelled accessible car park on their maps

So, have I got this right - the ONLY place to park - at weekends - is the "overspill" car park? Which means that general users to the property WILL come into the Parkrun "Zone", and be forced to cross the route and join the melee, even just to park??

85% of voters think the OP is not being unreasonable. Yet park run people can’t see it.

So still more than a thousand people?

Well done on standing your ground here, OP. I wonder if the Parkrun defenders who have lately joined this thread read the very condescending 1000 word public scolding you were given by the RD on page 4, since withdrawn. Perhaps they did. The 'we can do no wrong, just wait/step aside/come another time/ask us to move/we're all lovely volunteers you know' seems to be a common attitude. Not 'how can we manage this better?'.

Honestly, this is such an arrogant reply. Do you not realise how intimidating a group of dozens of people like this looking "official" can be? Would you say the same if this was a group of teenagers in hoodies?

Do you think every walker, cyclist has the social capital to take on such a group? Many of our local population don't speak English as their first langauge, many elderly people can't make their voice heard etc etc. There seems to be the internal impression that park runners are such lovely, kind, thoughtful people that everyone else should only be impressed and grateful for their presence.

I shouldn't have to be the park run police. The organisers should have the training and intelligence to think this through for themselves.

The parkrun with about 2500 is in South Africa. The biggest event in the UK gets about half that.

Anyone who thinks Parkrun is a well run organisation obviously is unaware that they allow men to take women's places and steal their wins. The directors of Parkrun hate women. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12118371/Fury-Parkrun-womens-record-revealed-held-transgender-attempted-murderer.html

Our local park run was canceled due to behaviour of some of the participants and volunteers. A small part of the route went through a local landowners property. The landowner had given permission for the route to go along a pathway but had made it clear that the pathway runs along fields which contain livestock and if there was an emergency access would be needed.

Unfortunately some participants (not local ones) had brought a dog with them and it had somehow got into the field and started chasing the sheep in the field. The landowner had tried to come and aid on his quad bike to be told rudely by the volunteer that he couldn't access his field due to the run and it was not an emergency. The landowner lost several sheep due to being chased by the dog. Landowner posted on local Facebook explaining that due to the incident and ongoing litter problems (apparently runners were discarding water bottles along the route and not using bins) he was withdrawing access permission and that was the end of the parkrun. It ran for a whole 2 months before being cancelled.

The pathway that was in use had been used by locals for many years without incident, there was an unofficial agreement that people could use it to continue walking along the river. The farmer had secured it best he could with fencing and hedgerows and a gate and put a sign on the gate asking that dogs would be kept on leads for this section of the walk during lambing season.

This sure has put me off Clumber. I used to be close enough to visit often, but now would count it as a quick-ish stop off for walking around a bit, on the way to places. I agree that my perception of it would be: first and foremost a National Trust site; very large, so would need onsite parking to be able to visit it; lots of visitors even with its size; no idea of the frequency, route, or size of park runs there, but would have expected that it's possible to plan them to be fairly undisruptive to other people who are not there for the run.

Glad to hear it! My RD acquaintances have been very modest, then. What I was trying to say was it's not a job, it's a volunteer role, and nobody goes off on a course to learn to do it. As far as I've seen, most RDs have rotated through all the volunteer roles out of interest/altruism and end up being asked to step up to RD because they seem sensible, approachable and reliable.

What I would suggest you do, then, is contact the local parkrun (their email address will be on their website) and ask them to encourage runners to stand on the grass so that other park users can get through. You'd get a sympathetic hearing from our parkrun, which I'm relieved to see isn't the one you have a beef with. It does surprise me, though, that other park users are struggling to make it known that they need to get through. Cyclists could ring their bells, walkers could say, as forcefully as needed, 'Excuse me', surely?

(Volunteer) ED of one event and RD of another event here and this is nonsense, sorry! There’s lots of training before you’re let lose with your event

Why the question mark?

Her dog was on a lead.

Photo:

Runners at my local park run start arriving from 8.20 or so, gradually building up for the next 40 minutes and blocking this path way before the run starts. They could all stand on the grass and let cyclists and walkers through, but they don't, even though there's some self-imposed leader bellowing instructions for them all through a megaphone.

It's this selfish, badly organised, entitled behaviour that pisses me off, not their desire to go for a run. But it's disingenuous to pretend that park run just has a 2-minute impact on the park. It does not.

Very fast indeed in some cases, very slowly in others, but it's only for a couple of minutes at the start that all runners are clumped together, and then the field will be very strung out. At our parkrun, before the run starts every single week runners and walkers are told to remember that we don't have exclusive use of the park and not to assume that other people will move to the side to let us past. I assumed this was standard across all parkruns, but there's no legislating for selfish people, who turn up in every area of life. In our case shared use of the park is not a problem as our park has wide paths and good visibility and some of the course is over grass. At other parkruns the terrain may make it a lot harder to balance safety and courtesy to all park users, including parkrunners.

That needs bringing to the attention of the NT.

It sounds as if they have made a recent change to carparking arrangements, without thinking it through.

I have spoken to my Parkrunning friend, and he has confirmed to me that the route does not (usually) bring the runners (etc) into contact with cars that may be attempting to get to the main car park (near the Chapel).

At weekends at least, what people are referring to as the main car park is coned off and marked as accessible parking only so any visitors following the signs will be going to the cow pastures car park, the park run course cuts across the entrance to this.

Ugh joggers! 🙄

It is too far away for me to go often enough to justify an annual pass, which is a shame, but the NT aren't interested in facilitating occasional mounted visitors to any of their parks. Fine if you are close by but no good for day trippers and I bloody resent having to pay extra for the horse when I can bring a bike, a pack of dogs or a hoard of parkrunners for free.