The hugely popular Bridport parkrun will soon be hosting its 50th run.

Locals or visitors can walk, jog or run in the free, weekly 5km event that runs at 9am every Saturday on St Mary's Playing fields.

The event is back after the pandemic and started up again in July, consistently welcoming more than 100 runners - hitting 206 one week - each Saturday morning.

The team of volunteers that make sure the event goes ahead each week was featured on BBC's The One Show and they would love for more to join them.

Laura Lombard, who volunteers at parkrun, said: "I like helping because if it means other people can do something then I thank that's a good thing.

"I volunteer here every couple of weeks so that I can run every couple of weeks and I think it would be nice if it was the same idea for other people. We can't run parkrun without volunteers."

Debbie Legge, who is a runner, was introduced to parkrun by her husband and wanted to give something back to a "lovely" event that is "really friendly".

"Sometimes I run it and sometimes I volunteer," she said. "If there's not enough people to do it then it's not going to happen.

"They are really friendly, really welcoming and it's a really lovely parkrun.

"I would encourage anybody to either come down and run - you don't have to run, people do it in all different ways - or come down and volunteer because it's a lovely thing to do, it gets you up in the morning."

John and Donna Heys also volunteer and they got into it after running the parkrun in Birmingham when they went to visit their daughter.

Donna said: "We see the benefits if it and it's important to keep it going for everyone because it's so inclusive. We believe in parkrun so much that we want to keep it going.

"They are such a friendly group - come down and make some new friends."

John added: "It's great exercise… it becomes almost a Saturday morning ritual.

"It's a good social occasion, you see familiar faces every week and new ones keep appearing and hopefully they will continue to. Everybody's made to feel so welcome and the whole core team is very supportive."

The Bridport parkrun was set up by a core of team of volunteers around 10 months before the pandemic, managing to get a core group of organisers together, fundraise for a defibrillator and set a route.

Sarah Kay, event director said: "I thought it was a shame that so many communities had one [parkrun] and we didn't. I thought it was so inclusive for all ages.

"It's so nice that anyone from kids to grandparents can take part and it's nice for the community, to meet people who live locally and something for new people to the area to do to connect with other people, and to make the most of this lovely park.

"We have met some lovely people through doing this."

Sam Rose, deputy Event Director is part of the core group of organisers and encouraged people to get involved as it is "giving something back to the community and a great way to start the weekend".

For more information about Bridport St Mary's parkrun, which takes place every Saturday morning at 9am, and to find out more about volunteering, visit parkrun.org

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