Shrewsbury Half Marathon raises more than £40,000 for charity

Runners were left short-changed by a route which saw them running half a mile less than a full half-marathon, although their efforts appear to have paid off for the charities being supported.

Dave Jones, organiser, said: "We have seen from the fundraising figures we've had sight of that over £40,000 was raised for charities, which is a fantastic result and a testament to the people taking part."

Charities to benefit from the run include Severn Hospice, Hope House Children's Hospice, the Lingen Davies cancer charity, Shrewsbury Food Bank and Guide Dogs.

Mr Jones blamed the shortness of the course on an oversight by one of the marshals.

"Having been able to view a downloaded route from a runner's GPS it highlights that a marshal turned the runners too early off Huffley Lane missing a section of the course.

"The course is broken down into five sections with a manager for each section who positions and looks after their allocated marshals.

"The manager for that section ultimately positioned the marshal too early on the lane."

He said it was an individual error but bitterly disappointing for all concerned, especially the runners.

He said that the event itself was a great improvement in terms of timings and traffic management, which has been the difficulty in previous years and there was no congestion on the way to the showground, most town centre roads were re-opened at 11.15am.

He said: "It is gutting that this individual mistake will overshadow the day.

"In terms of what we now do about it next it still being worked on.

"We're not sure at this stage what that will be, but we will act on it."

Around 1,500 runners took part in the race, with novices lining up alongside experienced club runners.

The race was won by Dean Bate, of Tipton Harriers, who completed the course in one hour and 15 minutes.

But questions were raised after GPS devices carried by the runners told a different story from the mile indicators on the course.

It was the second issue to hit organisers following a mix-up with Royal Mail which saw 300 competitor race pack numbers held at the sorting office in Wolverhampton due to insufficient postage.