to not understand the level of fuss about the Stoke Gifford Parkrun?

[Lucydogz]

I appreciate that, ideally, Parkruns should be free, but can't understand the level of fuss about Stoke Gifford proposing a £1 charge for this. I pay more than that to park my car when I do a parkrun in my town. Football clubs pay to use parks, as do other organisations, and parks really need the money. Well over 100 runners go on 'my' run, and it does increase wear and tear on the ground.

YABU. It's the principle. parkrun is responsible for lots of people doing some exercise instead of none. Even a £1 charge will put some of those people off.

If they want to make money from park users, charge for parking; don't single out one type of park use, especially when it isn't even exclusive; compare walking round the park when parkrun is on to walking across the pitch when a football match is on,

I don't think they should charge at all. We have parks available for community use, and the system is that local householders pay for the upkeep. Hence I can go to a park in Bristol, or the seaside at Skegness. It's a tit for tat thing. We need to stand firm. Asking for £1....can easily turn into £5....tuition fees were brought in....and increased rapidly.

I think they should run an secret park run using the power of the Internet so lots of people turn up aka raves of the 90's. No one can or should stop us all descending on the park at a certain time. Or Skegness on bank holiday Monday.

Of course you can run without Parkrun but more than 23,000 previously inactive people participated in a park run in 2015. The principle works. Many people have made vast amounts of money with far less lofty goals. The Parkrun operators are not selling franchises, floating companies or capitalising on their 1,500,000 members, they are doing enough to make it work and making the most of their sponsorship partnerships.

#loveparkrun
This piece of marketing genius is doing the rounds... apologies for not being able to do a clicky link on my foreign keyboard.
loveparkrun.com/#One

I live under this council... greedy bastards and have done themselves no favours at all!!

I'm on the councils side.

They asked for a voluntary donation of a pound and the runners refused. Most of the runners don't even live in little Stoke and there are plenty of parks, green areas and a common they could run on instead in the area.

Maybe the council should charge for car parking instead of per runner to help with the upkeep. It's also not just the grass and the paths its people using the loos as well. Some parks (Victoria Park in Bath for one) charge 20p for the loo and a pound an hour for parking. I don't begrudge paying that in fact I'm happy there's a road to park on that isn't miles away and a clean toilet with loo roll. I wouldn't mind paying a pound if I was a runner here.

I agree Brand. And at the end of the day, they are elected representatives and if they have overstepped the mark the won't be reelected.

But something tells me that the parishioners aren't probably going to get in a froth about a load of people from outside the area turning up and churning up the park and blocking all the parking then disappearing again being in high dudgeon about a £1.

It will be interesting to see how many runners turn up this weekend

I agree with the council.
Our park has loads of individual runners weekend mornings, would be seriously pissed off if hundreds of people from outside the area arrived at 9am and ran en masse for an hour.

I know. Shocking that people want to do exercise. Should be banned.

Shocking the public want to use a public park.

Trust me, there are no grants out there that would cover the maintenance of a park that belongs to a council. I've worked in sports development fundraising for years and it wouldn't wash with people like Awards4All etc.

I believe there is a sneaking privatisation of public spaces, through parking charges and more direct means. We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and we should be thanking the park run folk for doing something about it.

People who don't understand parkrun, go to your local one 5 weeks in a row. You'll get it then and become a parkrunner. parkrun is amazing.

I do run outside of parkrun, am a member of a running club and do various races, from 5k to marathons to 24 hour relays. I can go to a race knowing that I will always know someone. I went to a race 80 miles from me and knew someone well from parkrun. Neither of us knew the other was going to be there.

I was part of a team of 5 at a 24 hour relay, all people who knew each other from parkrun. All the other teams that we knew were also from parkrun. I got a lift the morning of the race to the closest parkrun from three other parkrunners that I didn't even know. It's more than just a run. It's changed my life and the lives of so many others.

To be honest the land that this massive park is on has only not been sold and built on because it is too unstable, it is of no use to them as anything other than a park.
The area is used by runners, dog walkers and has been for many, many years.

" turning up and churning up the park"

Yeah, because that totally happens when people run.

I was at the parish council meeting on Tuesday evening.

The council are not allowed to charge for car parking so they cannot collect revenue from that.

Yes, the path does need repairing but it needs repairing because tree roots are growing underneath it not because of the runners each week. The council are fully aware of this.

At the meeting, the councillors were fixated on Parkrun's so called "profits" despite being told about ten times that it is a non-profit making organisation.

They were also fixated on the local Parkrun applying for grants from the county council of between £1000 and £3000 (they don't even know how much they want!) but the county council had already confirmed that there are no grants available for park maintenance.

The councillors couldn't specify any specific damage to the park caused by parkrunners nor could they quantify how much they wanted for this unspecified damage! It was all, quite frankly, embarrassing and it seemed that a couple of the councillors were just on a big ego trip. They seemed to be enjoying the attention that the story had generated. When they put up ridiculous arguments and got passionate and frustrated responses back, they could argue that those involved with Parkrun were abusive!

Initially they proposed a £1 charge per runner (about six months ago) but instead have focused now on Parkrun as an organisation. I went into the meeting (as a regular parkrunner) having some sympathy with their arguments and I came out embarrassed on their behalf and fuming at their terrible, confused arguments!

Parkrun is a great local resource and these councillors should be proud to have one in their park, not trying to get rid of it.

Oh and the council isn't trying to charge because they need the money either. As others have pointed out, they are sitting on a surplus. Most of their spend on leisure activities last year went on repairs of a bouncy castle!

Very interesting Elanora!

Indeed. Shows how this supposed additional maintenance cost is pure make believe.

I think that main issue is that the council is fielding so many complaints fro local residents about the inconsiderate parking and taking over the borough (there's no way that park is big enough to cope with 300 runners!). The obvious solution would be to charge for parking which theoretically wouldn't impact those from within the parish but as there are already complaints about the local verges being ruined the parish couldn't be seen to do anything which might encourage people to not park in the carpark.
The simple truth is that someone needs to set up another parkrun elsewhere as that park is too small for the two big runs going on and the locals are being inconvenienced/complaining to the council about the verges being wrecked etc.

Parkrun have been looking to set up another in Bradley Stoke and possibly another one elsewhere. As soon as numbers become significant, they try and set up in other locations. There was initially just one at Ashton Court and there are now several throughout the city.

The parish council is not allowed to charge for parking.

At the meeting, there was no talk of complaints from residents other than from the two who turned up to complain (more (non running) residents turned up to speak in favour of the Parkrun). If there any incidents, they are reported to the Parkrun team and dealt with quickly. If they aren't being report to the Parkrun team, the council needs to improve its processes.

There isn't a cafe there that I've ever seen at Little Stoke. If the council set one up, they'd make a killing at the end of the parkrun each week.

Our council have confirmed this week that they won't charge for park run. Ours is on pathways, I really can't see how it causes any extra wear and tear.

We have a children's playground which is fantastic but probably costs more to maintain.

The Council have seen a quick way to make some money.

Excuse typos!

Thanks for the insider info elanora. I had wondered if they had quantified the so-called damage. Obviously not.

Their references to the damage caused was vague and unspecified. I don't recall hearing any specifics as to damage that the Parkrun has caused at the park. I understand that the council already has plans to repair the path but it's needed because of the tree growth which has made the path very uneven in places.

Hence it seemed more about some councillors' egos than actually a need to cover costs or generate income!

megletthesecond - Yes, exactly. I would have more sympathy with the council if they could have put their finger on what damage the Parkrun had actually caused. Admittedly, some of the councillors were hard to hear but I don't recall hearing any specific references to damage caused by Parkrunners or a value placed on it. The council's arguments were all spurious.

There seems to be another agenda here but I can't work out what it is unless it is just a big ego trip for two of them (which is the impression I got at the meeting).