Hillsborough Parkrun returns after route blocked by festival repairs

Runners completed an alternative route at the park on Saturday

A running event has resumed at a Sheffield park after the route was left inaccessible following a music festival.

Hillsborough Parkrun cancelled its weekly run due to barriers blocking the course amid repair work after July's Tramlines festival.

Hundreds of runners returned to an alternative route on Saturday.

The work to restore the damaged park, paid for by Tramlines, was now complete, festival bosses said.

The next phase of the project will see the repaired areas re-fertilised after the initial new growth of grass is established.

The festival site was left muddy following days of heavy rain

Tramlines organisers said they were expecting this to happen during September but stressed it was weather dependent.

According to organisers, about 380 runners took part on Saturday and runner Jon Cooper said he was pleased with how well the park had been restored so far.

He told BBC Look North: "I think the park is actually in a pretty good state given what it was like a couple of weeks ago."

Meanwhile, Andy Chaplin from Friends of Hillsborough Park, said the park was not a suitable venue for an event of this scale.

Andy Chaplin from Friends of Hillsborough Park said the park should not be used for Tramlines

He said: "For a commercial event of 40,000 people a day, a public park is just not the place to hold it.

"The fact that it quite often rains in July now could never guarantee that it's not going to happen again."

However, Andrew Davies, from Hillsborough Running Club, said the positives outweighed the damaged caused by the festival.

He said: "Tramlines brings a lot of enjoyment to a lot of people in Sheffield so we have a bit of a minor disruption for a few weeks but it's okay."

Tramlines organisers said the repaired areas would need some time to become resilient enough to open for public use.

A reopening date has not yet been confirmed.