Staging the annual Bonfire Night and Fireworks Display is an important event in the City Council’s calendar. Not only is it popular with residents, visitors and businesses, it also raises much needed funding for local charities.
Following the difficult decision to cancel last year’s event, the City Council was committed to doing everything possible to stage a safe, affordable and enjoyable Bonfire Night for the local community in 2026 and set up a working group to explore options for achieving this.
The remit of the Bonfire Night Committee included looking at potential venues and working with partners and local organisations to develop robust plans to manage the numbers wishing to attend the event, ensure safe pedestrian and traffic access to and from the venue and minimise any negative impacts on nearby residents during the event.
The scale of the event, with up to 5,000 expected to attend, meant that this year’s event had to be considered as an “enhanced tier” event under the Government’s Martyn’s Law legislation. This requires organisers of large public events to implement enhanced measures designed to protect people from harm. Whilst the law does not take effect until 2027, local Councils are being encouraged to act as though it is already in force.
Having identified Tremorvah Playing Field as a potential venue, members of the Bonfire Night Committee worked extremely hard over the summer months to draw up plans to meet these objectives and ensure the safe delivery of the event. This involved extensive discussions with a range of agencies and organisations over road closures (necessary to control traffic and separate vehicles from people), ticket entry, managing crowds both in the event itself and accessing and leaving the site, providing effective communications and securing support in the case of an emergency situation.
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of everyone involved in the planning, the working group concluded that it would not be possible to stage the event safely within existing budgets and resources, whilst ensuring that it remained affordable for local residents and did not adversely affect people living in and around the Tremorvah Playing Field.
As a result, the Council has reluctantly taken the decision to cancel this year’s Bonfire Night and Fireworks Display.
Truro City Council Town Clerk, David Rodda, said, “Truro City Council can only stage events where it is satisfied that it can do so safely and within available budgets. Despite our best efforts, it was not possible to do that this year whilst keeping the entry price at an affordable level and whilst ensuring that we meet the necessary requirements of an “Enhanced tier” event under Martyn’s Law. I know this will be a disappointment for many residents.”
The Council recognises that this decision will disappoint the local community and will continue to investigate options to overcome the challenges faced in organising this year’s event with the aim of staging a safe and affordable event in the future.