The North West 10k Charity Run & Walk is to move to a new date for 2022.
The popular event is moving to the May Bank Holiday Monday for the 25th anniversary celebration with the special event set to take place on May 2nd, 2022 at 11 a.m..
That’s a change from the traditional Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon start of 2 p.m. The new date was formally agreed at a committee meeting on Wednesday evening in the Mount Errigal. The decision was taken primarily on health and safety grounds. The North West 10k has raised €833,000 for over 30 charities since 1997.
North West 10k Chairperson Neil Martin
This year’s charity event was a virtual event due to Covid and the 2020 run and walk did not go ahead at all due to the pandemic. However, a review of the previous couple of years found that a huge increase in vehicular traffic on the Sunday was posing additional risks to managing the race safely for runners and walkers. North West 10k Chairperson Neil Martin said that an analysis of running the event on the Bank Holiday Monday morning was carried out and clearly showed a lot less traffic on the routes around the town used by the organisers.
“We are going with the Bank Holiday Monday for the 25th anniversary event following the review carried out of the North West 10ks in the couple of years before Covid. Health and safety was becoming a much bigger issue for us to manage with huge traffic in the town on the Sunday with shopping and cars just passing through the town. An enhanced traffic management plan and more marshalls was going to be needed for the Sunday afternoon going forward” Mr Martin said.
In recent weeks a 10k sub-committee has finalised their review and recommended the change of date which was approved at Wednesday evening’s meeting. “So our committee had looked at the Bank Holiday Monday and the assessment showed a lot less traffic and that can be put down partly to less shops being open in the morning time. So we have agreed a starting time of 11 a.m. and we hope now with everyone’s support that it makes the 10k safer for runners and walkers. We are really looking forward to the 25th anniversary and we want to make it special for everyone involved with the event” Mr Martin said.
The North West 10k committee has embarked on plans to mark the 25th milestone with some of the significant highlights and central figures in the history of the event set to feature in the big build-up to the run and walk which take place on that new date of Bank Holiday Monday 2nd of May 2022.
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