Can anyone help me understand the new rule

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Where (in England) 'up to 6 people can meet in an outdoor park' as long as they keep two meters apart. If I go to a park, I have to keep two meters away from anyone not in my household whether I know them or not, so why limit it to 6 people?

I get keeping the number low in your own garden as it's a smaller space and private property, but I just don't get the limit in public spaces if you're all 2m apart. Is it because they know that the likelihood of maintaining the separation is lower with a group of friends perhaps so this is an attempt at mitigating the risk?

I think you've answered your own question there.

To stop massive crowds gathering? There are already problems with crowds at beauty spots. Imagine everyone was able to meet up with unlimited numbers of people outside.

If there were say 20 of you, ALL keeping 2m apart and sitting in a mahoosive circle, you'd never hear the person on the other side?

If you go to the park you will presumably try to sit further than 2m apart from groups of strangers? Both length of time and distance affect transmission, so if you walk past groups of strangers it isn’t really a problem but you will likely be near the people that you are meeting for a longer length of time.

Essentially you want to limit the amount of people that you stay only 2m from for any considerable amount of time.

Thanks everyone. You have helped me sort my thoughts.
I really hope we stay on the downward slope of the curve as there is absolutely No Way we will ever get the level of cooperation from the majority of people again if there's a further lockdown.