The return of the Conkers parkrun in Moira has been delayed by three weeks - after being scheduled to start again on June 5.

All parkrun 5k events across England have been put back to June 26 due to a lack of support from landowners.

More than 250 events in England obtained landowner permission to return, but this fell far short of the number needed for it to return on the first weekend in June as had been hoped Conkers parkrun to return this summer after lockdown.

Parkrun UK is now aiming to resume all events across England on Saturday, June 26, and a final decision will be made on this on Friday, June 11.

The Conkers event had been a regular weekly run, starting at 9am each Saturday.

In a statement today (Friday) Nick Pearson, parkrun Global Chief Executive, 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 June 5, 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 June 26."

The delay comes after several permission requests got caught up in "unnecessary red tape and lengthy internal bureaucracy at a local level", despite widespread support nationally from the UK government, MPs on both sides of Parliament, DCMS and Sport England.

Many high-profile supporters joined the rallying cry for parkrun to return.

Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston backed parkrun's proposed return date in a letter at the end of April.

Parkrun organisers take the view that all the 5k running events need to start on the same date, to prevent races becoming overwhelmed with extra runners.

Sinton-Hewitt said in his letter: "Ever since the first lockdown began, I have been worried about whether or not parkrun would survive.

"It is no exaggeration to say that the next few days and weeks will be critical for the entire parkrun movement.

"It has been humbling to hear parkrun referred to as 'one of the greatest public health initiatives in the history of the United Kingdom' in the corridors of Public Health and elsewhere.

"But now is not the time for platitudes or empty gestures. We must all do everything we can to ensure that parkrun is here to be enjoyed for generations to come."