There is great disappointment in the local community following the news from Fermanagh and Omagh District Council that Enniskillen 10K will not go ahead this year, nor is likely to return in the future.

The Council claim that this decision was taken due to dropping numbers pre-Covid, increasing difficulties in finding a safe and accessible route and ever-rising delivery costs. The event was last held in 2019 and was hosted virtually in 2021 due to the pandemic.

However, aside from disappointed runners, a local charity is highlighting how the discontinuation of this annual running event will impact on fundraising.

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For the last five years, pre-Covid, supporters of Home-Start Lakeland, have been running the 10K in aid of the Fermanagh family support charity.

Explaining that supporters are “extremely disappointed” that Enniskillen 10K isn’t due to take place in 2022 and appears unlikely to return, a Home-Start Lakeland spokeswoman said: “The group raised £2.8k for Home-Start Lakeland at the last race held in 2019.

“Charities have been unable to fundraise over the last two years and this has made it extremely difficult to keep our organisations running at a time when the general public need us even more,” she said, adding: “We are sure we are not the only charity to have benefited from fundraising during the 10K and wonder if the Council have considered this when making their decision.”

Home-Start Lakeland is therefore calling on the Council to revisit and reconsider their decision.

A Council spokesman explained that the Enniskillen 10K was first organised by the Council in 2006 and, at that time, was one of the first 10K events in the area.

Defending the decision to discontinue the event, the Council spokesman continued: “After reaching a peak of nearly 1,300 participants in 2009, the event has experienced a year on year decline in popularity dropping to under 700 participants in 2019 - the last time it was delivered pre-pandemic.

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“The reasons for this drop are multifaceted with the significant contributing factor being the growth in the number of organised runs delivered by clubs and community groups; a trend that the Council welcomes.

“Along with the dropping numbers, the Council has experienced increasing difficulties in finding a safe and accessible route that would satisfy competitive and recreational runners as well as disabled participants and has been faced with ever rising delivery costs.”

On February 8, during a meeting of the Council’s Regeneration and Community Committee, Councillor Paul Blake, SDLP, in reference to the decision to discontinue Enniskillen 10K, questioned if the event could be outsourced to another group, giving Enniskillen Running Club as an example.

“I know it’s a lot of responsibility but it might help in terms of reviving it because I certainly wouldn’t want to see it go back to a virtual event.

“I think we want to see people out and about and we want to see people taking part in things like that out in Enniskillen,” said Councillor Blake, alternatively suggesting that the 10K could be increased to a half marathon or marathon.

Responding to Councillor Blake, a Council Official explained that the Council has been in discussions with Enniskillen Running Club who already organise and run the Spooktacular running event at Hallowe’en and therefore “are not keen” to take on the summer 10K event.

He went on to note that as there is currently no half marathon or marathon events in Fermanagh, the Council are planning to talk to all of the running clubs to see if that’s something that they feel “would be a runner”.