Bonfire Night events
Wirral Council and community safety partners have been working very closely with organisers of community Bonfire Night events across the borough to ensure their plans meet the safety requirements to go ahead on council land.
Only events that meet those requirements are given permission to take place by the Wirral Events Safety Advisory Group (WESAG), which consists of officers from the local authority, police, fire and rescue and others.
This approach is in line with the position statement of Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service on community bonfires and with a policy adopted by Wirral Council this year which aims to minimise the potential for harm to people, property and the environment by putting control measures in place.
Representatives from six areas of Wirral submitted applications to the WESAG which included details such as:-
- How their events would be stewarded
- How people would be prevented from getting too close to the bonfire or fireworks
- What first aid provision would be in place
- Evidence of public liability insurance
- The scale of the planned bonfire
- Agree to only burn clean wood and, if there was fireworks
- What category fireworks would be used
Following consideration of each of the plans, four areas have been offered a conditional Land Use Agreement to enable to them to deliver their events – these are on council land at Leasowe, Beechwood, Noctorum and Seacombe.
We acknowledge the considerable amount of hard work that has been put in by organisers from the communities, working with partner agencies, towards staging a safe, organised event this Bonfire Night and we thank them for committing to this process.
Following advice from Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and an independent fire safety assessor, organisers from two areas – Woodchurch and Ilchester Park, Birkenhead – were asked to take action to reduce the size of their bonfires on safety grounds. They were not asked or told to cancel their event.
In both of those areas, people had been collecting materials and constructing bonfires even before an agreement was reached that they could take place. The fire safety assessments found them to be unsafe to be burned at the size they had been built and when looked at in the context of their wider event plans.
As communities will now be aware, both those bonfires were lit last night (Wednesday 22nd October).
As is the case across Wirral, any unauthorised bonfires on council land - or fly-tipped material that may be used for a fire - will be subject to action by the council as the landowner.
