Falkirk Council: Public fireworks display to go ahead at cost of £10k

The annual firework display in Callendar Park usually attracts nearly 30,000 people.

At a meeting of Falkirk Council today (Wednesday) councillors were promised that officers are looking at ways to reduce the noise from future events as they are aware of the impact on wildlife and pets in particular.

Michael McGuinness, head of growth, planning and climate change at Falkirk Council, said it was important for the council to host the event so that people could enjoy a display safely.

He said that the public event was seen as important to “ensuring our communities have a place to go and celebrate the Fifth of November.

“We are working very closely with the fire service and Scottish Police to ensure we have a safe and positive contribution to our community,” he told members.

Council leader, Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, said that many members of the public have concerns about the noise of fireworks and asked if action was being taken to reduce this.

Mr McGuinness said that they recognise that noisy fireworks do have an impact on some members of the community and said “we are looking to explore that”.

“These fireworks will create noise – we need to communicate that to our communities – but we are looking in the future to have less noise created by the fireworks,” he told the meeting.

Councillor Brian McCabe asked if the fireworks could be justified at a cost of £10,000 given the financial climate.

“Should we not be considering not going ahead with this? Some people might say we have money to burn,” he said. “I’m just throwing it out there for discussion.”

But his Independent colleague Robert Spears said it is one of the biggest events in Falkirk and he fully backed it to “bring a bit of cheer to the people of Falkirk”.

Legislation has been introduced by the Scottish Parliament that will make it more difficult for people to buy fireworks and hold private displays. This includes proposals to create ‘firework zones’, but as yet there have been no local decisions about where these would be.

Conservative councillor James Kerr said the council would need to look at options for firework displays in the future and urged a meeting with group leaders to discuss it.