Resumption of orienteering: Phase 1 United Kingdom

The updated UK government guidance published on 11 May 2020 permits the resumption of outdoor sports in England where you take part alone, within a household group, or with one person from outside your household from whom you must stay two metres apart at all times.

The updated guidance from the NI Executive published on 18 May 2020 permits Groups of 4 – 6 people who do not share a household can meet outdoors maintaining social distancing.

This will allow us to resume a limited set of individual orienteering activities in these parts of the country, as set out below.

There is no change to the current position in Scotland and Wales, and so orienteering activities in these parts of the UK must remain suspended for now.

As a sport, we must work together to resume orienteering responsibly as and when the relevant government determines it is safe to do so. The Board have committed to following the respective advice of each government, and therefore there are likely to be periods when types of orienteering activities permitted will vary between different parts of the UK, depending on the government guidelines and regulations.

In England and the Isle of Man, we moved to Phase 1 of the resumption of orienteering with effect from 14 May 2020.

In Northern Ireland, we will move to Phase 1 with effect from 22 May 2020.

This will mean that clubs and individuals can:

• Promote the use of Permanent Orienteering Courses (POCs)
• Make maps with pre-marked courses available
• Promote the use of MapRun or Routegadget and other virtual orienteering courses (VOCs),
• Carry out mapping and planning for future events

The full guidance can be downloaded here.