Hopes for runners in our town have been dashed - as the Macclesfield Parkrun has been postponed once again.

With restrictions easing, there was fresh hope that the event could take place in the first week of June.

However, it has been announced today that the event planned for Saturday June 5 will not go ahead.

The group exercise, which takes place in Macclesfield's South Park, is part of a wider national event by taking place at the same time as hundreds of other runs across the country.

Unfortunately, bureaucratic red tape and slow response times have led to many park owners across the country to not replying in time to give permission for the COVID-safe event to go ahead.

Although more than 250 events in the UK do have landowner permission to return, Cheshire East Council is one who have not approved the return just yet.

This means the Macclesfield event can not go ahead, as they own South Park.

Parkrun organisers for our country would only want the event to go ahead, if most towns and cities could take part.

With Macclesfield's not going ahead, among others, this falls far short of the critical mass needed to prevent overwhelming those that have been given the go ahead.

It is hoped Cheshire East Council among other authorities and landowners will approve an event later in the month.

parkrun UK will now target Saturday 26 June to resume all 5k events across England.

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 5 June, 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 26 June."

A decision will be made regarding the go ahead for this new date on Friday 11 June.

The once weekly event was last held 62 weeks ago.

It is a timed 5k walk, jog or run that aims to be held at 9:00am every Saturday. It is open to Maxonians of all ages and abilities.

The Macclesfield event is organised entirely by volunteers.

Volunteers can message [email protected] to help out at future runs.

Sign up for our Friday weekly newsletter containing that week's top 10 Macclesfield news stories. Just enter your email address into the shaded box.

Please follow Macc's online newspaper on your favourite social media platform. You can find us on Facebook or Twitter.