Keen runners have been left wondering whether the ever-popular Wycombe Rye parkrun will be returning to the town.

The Wycome Rye parkrun, a 5km circuit around The Rye every Saturday at 9am, has obviously had to be put on hold during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic for safety reasons.

But with restrictions gradually easing, and things looking more positive, runners have been wondering whether the event - which usually draws hundreds of runners every week - will be coming back.

parkrun hosts running events at open spaces across the country, so it has been difficult to get permission from landowners to return safely.

Although more than 250 events - including the Wycombe Rye parkrun and the Higginson parkrun in Marlow - have been given permission to start up again, there are fears from organisers that those events that do go ahead could be overwhelmed.

This means that at the moment, parkrun have had to delay their planned reopening on June 5 to June 26.

In a statement on the website, parkrun said: "Although more than 250 events do have landowner permission to return, this falls far short of the critical mass needed to prevent overwhelming those that have been given the go ahead.

"With more than three million registered parkrunners across England, and around 300,000 people taking part on a typical weekend, opening a small subset of parkruns is not viable.

"In ongoing discussions, where landowners were withholding permission, parkrun organisers sought clarification on whether permission would be granted for a later date.

"With a number of landowners responding positively, parkrun UK will now target Saturday 26 June to resume all 5k events across England.

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

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.”

Buckinghamshire Council has also provided an update on the situation with the Black Park parkrun in Iver.

They said: "We had given permission provided they ran their risk assessment via the local safety advisory group, followed any advice provided, reiterated communications about respect for other park users and signed the licence agreement (which they have done).

"We met with the local parkrun organisers to agree some small adjustments on the course to minimise contact and provide better safety measure for runners and other park users.

"We look forward to Parkrun returning to our site when they make their decision to return."

You can view the full list of parkruns that have landowner permission to start up again here: blog.parkrun.com/uk/2021/04/30/current-landowner-permissions/