A BOXING Day running race that has a ten-year history has been cancelled this year because it does not meet with police safety regulations.

The Cross Keys 9-mile race in Suckley attracts runners from all over the country every year, but this year it has fallen foul of new road closure orders.

Under new health and safety responsibilities, the police have advised that the road is "extremely unsuitable" for a run.

But organiser and runner Chris Crosswell said there had never been any problems with the race in the past.

"I suspect this will be the end of the race because these new regulations mean that effectively, road running is over," he said.

"Unfortunately, in the society we live in everybody is worried about covering their own backs because they're worried about being sued.

"The police can't stop me doing the race but I've got a moral responsibility to protect the safety of the runners.

"I've got a road permit from our athletic association which gives us insurance but should there be a problem and somebody made a claim, the underwriters wouldn't pay up because of the police objections," he said.

The race starts and finishes at the Cross Keys pub and has a limit of 150 runners.

"It's not a big race. I could understand if it was a large race with 2,000 runners in the middle of Worcester we would have to close the roads, but this race is in the middle of nowhere on Boxing Day at 11am and it's generally over by 1pm," he said.

PC Mike Digger, traffic management officer for the Worcester division, said there were issues with the road they felt couldn't be addressed even with a road closure.

"It's an extremely narrow road with no verges and we felt there were some areas which were unsuitable for a mix of cars and pedestrians," he said.

"There's running water, pot holes and in some cases there are blind bends and we would be failing in our duty to the public in saying yes, go ahead if we had reservations about the road," he said.