Cancellation of Truro Bonfire Night fireworks ‘sucks’, say councillors
It comes two weeks after Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service announced that it had cancelled its display in Falmouth
Truro’s town clerk has said it is with a “heavy heart” that a decision has been made by the city council to cancel this year’s Bonfire Night fireworks event – one of the most popular in Cornwall. It comes two weeks after Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service announced that it had cancelled its display in Falmouth.
It was announced by the city council earlier this month that it was looking at moving the Bonfire Night event to the cattle market on Newquay Road because its traditional site at Tremorvah playing field was deemed unsafe due to vehicle ‘chaos’ and police concerns last year.
However, town clerk David Rodda told a meeting of the council’s finance and general purposes committee last night (Monday, October 20) that the event would now have to be cancelled this year as it has got “too big” for the council to manage on its own. Up to 4,000 people attended 2024’s event and there were concerns that number would increase this year due to the cancellation of the Falmouth display.
He told councillors: “The event has been growing year on year and it shifted from a community event we can handle ourselves to something much, much bigger. One other thing which unfortunately we do now have to consider more than ever before is hostile vehicle movements as well.” Mr Rodda said that wasn’t just possible terrorism incidents, but events such as that seen in Liverpool earlier this year when a car ploughed into a crowd when a car ploughed into a crowd injuring over 100 people.
“We’ve been agonising over this and looking at ways we can do it in terms of achieving what we need to achieve with our own staff and volunteers and I’m afraid the answer to that is no because of the scale. The only way we could do it is to bring in paid crowd management and traffic control, but it’s a charity event so if we pay people then the amount of money we raise for charities is going to diminish.”
He added: “So it’s with a heavy heart that I’ve looked at it and as town clerk I’m not prepared to run an event that I’m not 100% confident we can mitigate against the risks. So this year’s event will be cancelled and then we’ll consider if we can bring it back in 2026 at a venue where we are confident we can control vehicle and pedestrian movements. Believe me, this hasn’t been an easy choice.”
The city council made the decision after consulting with the Safety Advisory Group which is made up of Cornwall Council’s highways department, police, ambulance and other bodies. Other locations had been looked at but because of the time needed to apply for road closures, it has not been possible to find another venue for next month’s event.
Mr Rodda said he was committed to bringing the Bonfire Night fireworks back in 2026 “because it is a really good event for residents and it raises a lot of money for charities, but this year we cannot do it safely”.
After the town clerk told the committee the news Cllr Steven Webb said “that sucks”. Cllr Rod Pascoe agreed: “Wow, that, as you say, sucks.” He suggested that a committee is set up to organise looking at bringing the event back in 2026 “so it doesn’t die a death at the death next year”. The committee agreed.
He added: “We’ve had 12 months since the last one and we knew what the figures were last year. Why are we now in October saying there were too many people last year for this year to go ahead? This should have been discussed well in advance.”
Cllr Karlene Stokes said: “This is a really big disappointment for Truro because this was a big day. The sad thing is Truro City Council isn’t seen as doing lots and this is one of the things it’s seen as doing and now we’re not doing that. It’s important that a committee is set up for next year so there’s a glimmer of hope.”
The committee heard that the health and safety responsibilities for Truro City Council as the organiser have grown immeasurably. A council officer said: “We’ve got to be very careful to be able to protect our residents. Everybody’s really disappointed within the staff – the parks staff are gutted. It’s something they love doing, but we’ve got to protect people first.”