An Okehampton parkrun is one step closer to taking place after Okehampton Town Council approved the route last week provided it remain on existing pathways.

Discussions over setting up a parkrun in Simmons Park have been ongoing since last year when the Okehampton Community and Recreation Association (OCRA) proposed setting up the town’s first parkrun, but have been blighted with councillors’ concerns over the safety of the proposed running routes.

In February this year councillors first discussed three proposed routes but voiced concerns that each route included several unpaved trackways which could become treacherous in poor weather and concluded that they would approve the parkrun proposal subject to a change of route during bad weather or other pre-booked events which could interfere with the usual route.

After seeing three alternative route at a meeting last week (October 3), councillors have agreed to approve any one of them providing it remains on an existing hard surface.

Parkrun is a free international community event in which participants run, walk or jog five kilometres every Saturday morning.

It was started by Simon Sinton-Hewitt and originally took place in Bushy Park in Teddington, London in 2004 with only 13 participants. Two years later the run became so popular spread to Wimbledon, London.

Since then, it has continued to grow and parkrun now covers over 2000 locations in 22 countries including Australia, the United States and Germany.

There are over 700 parkrun locations in the UK alone.