This year’s Flora London Marathon is to be run on 22nd April and aims to beat the £41.5m raised through the 2006 event. This money is distributed to the charities that each runner is supporting. Additionally the event itself is run by a charity and the profit from the money raised through sponsorship, TV rights, entry fees, advertising etc is used to fund sport and recreation projects in London.

Despite this massive contribution to UK giving figures, the event does not escape controversy. The marathon has a bond scheme. Each gold bond, of which there are 2,750 (shared between just 624 charities), entitles a charity to enter five runners for five years. Each bond costs £300 and yields an average of £2,170 so they are pretty valuable assets. What seems totally unfair is that they are automatically renewable – thus preventing many charities, not currently involved, from the hope of ever gaining access to this cash cow event. I have read of one charity that has over 500 guaranteed places each year. Can this really be fair?

It is a wonderful event that raises a huge amount for charity, but it seems sad to me that it should be so exclusive.

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