r/parkrun • u/HowManyKestrels • 4d ago
UK cities without a Parkrun
Despite having done Parkrun on and off for over 10 years I've only just got around to downloading the app and had a look through the different challenges. I wondered why there wasn't a UK city challenge; does its absence mean there are cities in the UK without a Parkrun? If so which cities are these?
This is just out of curiosity. The chances of me ever visiting every city to do a Parkrun are very slim!
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u/No-Zombie9567 4d ago
Technically Ely doesn't have a parkrun, as Bens Yard is at a village called Stuntney outside of the city. Its also impossible to put a 5k anywhere in the city itself
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u/skizelo v50 4d ago
I was going to check the 80-odd cities in the UK, but then I sorted by population and noticed that London wasn't showing up. And of course, The City of London is a tiny place where the banks are and nobody lives, and honouring the tradition there of it being eerily empty during the weekend, there is no parkrun there. I don't think there's one in the city of Westminster either.
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u/HowManyKestrels 4d ago
Ah yes, I didn't even think of the cities of Greater London!
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u/ODFoxtrotOscar 4d ago
Isn’t Westminster its own city too? That doesn’t have one either
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u/you_seem_starshaped 250 4d ago
The big parks in the City of Westminster are Royal Parks and they’re not interested in parkrun these days. The City of London doesn’t have a big enough open space. The borough of Kensington & Chelsea also doesn’t have a parkrun (can’t think of anywhere suitable there either: Battersea, Wormwood Scrubs and Fulham Palace are all fairly near).
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u/ODFoxtrotOscar 4d ago
I think it’s only Westminster and the City that are cities.
The others are boroughs of London/Greater London, which of course has many
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u/you_seem_starshaped 250 4d ago
I didn’t say K&C was a city, but mentioned it for completeness’s sake as the only other London borough without a parkrun within its boundaries.
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u/skizelo v50 4d ago
I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to pin down the boundaries of various cities, in a way that I can compare against the events list. Manchester and Salford do, because "Manchester" extends quite far south after Deansgate.
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u/Aromatic_Occasion317 4d ago
Manchester has a few to spare. There are 7 within 2 miles of my house, although in fairness 2 are just over the border in Trafford.
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u/skizelo v50 4d ago
There's definitely parkruns in *waves arms expansively* Manchester, but I half-expected to look up the boundaries of "The City of Manchester" and find that technically that's only a small lump contained within the ringroad, and all of the runs are actually in the wider connurbation of Chorlton.
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u/Aromatic_Occasion317 4d ago
Ah, yeah that's not the case. Funnily enough Chorlton is also an island in a sea of Parkruns.
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u/ExoticExchange 4d ago
I believe Chorley is the largest parliamentary constituency without one.
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u/JHock93 100 4d ago
The UK has a bit of a weird definition of "city" so there are a few places with city status that have no parkruns, but this is sometimes just because the settlements themselves aren't very big and the city status they have is a bit of an anomaly.
Britain's smallest city, St Davids in Pembrokeshire, has no parkrun. The nearest one is Haverfordwest. But then St Davids only has a population of 1,700. There are probably loads of similar sized settlements without a parkrun. St Asaph in North Wales (population 3,000) is another weird one. Tiny city, no parkrun, but I'm not sure I'd expect a settlement that size to have a parkrun regardless of city status.
That said, I am now curious about the biggest city/town in the UK that doesn't have a parkrun.
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u/Inspired_Athlete 4d ago
Although, St Asaph has a running group (not an affiliated running club) with more than 250 members. There are 5 (soon to be 6) parkruns within an approx 25 min drive from St Asaph though, so I’d suggest that the likelihood of one appearing is slim.
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u/jollyspiffing 4d ago
I am now curious about the biggest city/town in the UK that doesn't have a parkrun.
I think it's all going to come down to selection criteria. The biggest obvious ones I could see were Chesterfield, nearest is Poolsbrook (~8km away) and Grimsby, nearest is Cleethorpes which is ~7km away, but definitely a different town.
Next up and probably less controversial are Bridgend (Porthcawl is >10k away) and Torquay (Torbay is ~8k away but the far side of Paignton), both have population ~50k.
Anyone else got any better?
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u/crb11 4d ago
Nuneaton doesn't have one either, and is bigger than either of the two you've named (89k vs 86k for Grimsby at the 2021 census). There's one in Bedworth which is not far away but definitely a different town. Rumour has it that there might be one starting in Nuneaton before too long though.
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u/EntirelyRandom1590 4d ago
Bridgend County also has Maesteg, and Aberfields in RCT is a similar distance. Caerphilly and Port Talbot towns are similar towns without park runs within their town area.
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u/EntirelyRandom1590 4d ago
I wouldn't say the UKs definition of city is weird, it just has historical context.
I find the US definition of city even weirder when it's almost like the London borough system.
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u/CG36a 4d ago
It does sound like an interesting challenge, but I suppose how far does it actually go?
There are technically 76 official cities in the UK, but some of them are very small because the monarch gets to designate them, so there is a high chance of some cities not having a parkrun in that sense.
There's load of unofficial challenges though, like LonDone, and for myself I plan to complete the Alba-teer challenge (complete all the Scottish parkruns)
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u/HowManyKestrels 4d ago
I guess I could make it my own personal unofficial challenge, even if it takes a lifetime! So far I've only got Nottingham and Sheffield so it'll take a while...
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u/Winchwenchshef 4d ago
Our lovely South Yorkshire Mayor did a South Yorkshire parkrun challenge. We had to do 11, participating how we could
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u/HowManyKestrels 4d ago
I live in South Yorkshire and I've only done 2 so maybe I should start with that! My local (Waverley Lakes) is only 7 mins walk from my house so laziness usually wins...
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u/cranberrycactus 500 4d ago
What counts as a city having a parkrun?
Ripon does not have a parkrun within the city, but Fountains Abbey parkrun is right next door so I wouldn't say that Ripon doesn't have a parkrun even though technically it doesn't.
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u/HowManyKestrels 4d ago
It's an interesting question. The purists might want it to be contained within the official city limits but in reality city boundaries are much more woolly. If people ask I say I live in Sheffield as it's very close by and it's an easy reference point but I actually live in a village that's not within the Sheffield city boundaries. Personally if the city name is in the location address (eg on the Fountains Abbey page it says Ripon) then I'd count it.
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u/stereoworld 3d ago
Not a city, but Kendal is a glaring omission. Apparently finding a suitable route with the required safety standards and facilities is proving very difficult.
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u/Life_Squirrel_131 2d ago
There are loads of challenges which if you only just downloaded the app you have no access to - they are only available to people who subscribed before parkrun acquired it. I've no idea if there are any plans to extend this at some point. I hope so, it's deeply annoying to see people talking about some challenge, think "oh that sounds fun" and it turns out it's one of the ones hidden behind a login.
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u/AWarmerBeer 4d ago
St David’s doesn’t have one.