Running club to help shine light on Glasgow’s dark parks at Friday night demo
Bellahouston Road Runners call for safer night-time public spaces for all
A Glasgow running club has given its support to a local radio station’s campaign to help light up the city’s parks during the long winter nights.
The Bellahouston Road Runners have called for more runners to join them on a social run to Radio Clyde’s ‘Light Up Our Parks’ demonstration centred on the Stewart Memorial Fountain in Kelvingrove Park at 6pm tomorrow night (Friday, 10 December).
The #LightTheWay demonstration aims to bring people together from across Glasgow to call for improved lighting in the city's parks and demand the City Council do more to keep everyone safe at night.
The run will leave from the Village Hotel on Festival Gate at 5.30pm and cover approximately 2.5 miles. For those who can’t make the start, but who might be able to join the group when it's in motion, the route is described on the event's facebook page.
The Bellahouston Road Runners have been asking for improved winter lighting for all the users of Glasgow’s parks for years.
Last month runner Chi My Ta told Clyde News, "It's a sad thing to say that I wouldn't feel safe as a woman to go out and run by myself. That's one of the reasons why we are absolutely keen for parks to have lighting. It works. In Glasgow Green it works and what we want to see is other parks around the city to have that same facility.
"It makes it very difficult to use the parks and train in the parks in a safe way. We've actually had members fall over on poorly lit paths and that's resulted in injury and of course it's not just for us, it's for everybody to use."
Radio Clyde launched the #LightTheWay campaign in November. Since then, it has earned the support of a wide variety of charities and politicians of all stripes, including the Lord Provost.
The demonstration, organised by Radio Clyde, will be hosted by Clyde 1's Cassi and include talks from a range of speakers. Anyone coming along is asked to bring safety lights, head torches, candles, torches, bike lights – or whatever they can to light up the park for the big ‘switch-on’.
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