Firework displays to see off a tough year

THIS letter from Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes, was written in response to one from city resident Tina Webb earlier this month:

LAST year was extremely challenging for everyone in our city. Newcastle City Council and its partners wanted to bring our communities together to mark the end of this difficult year and to look forward to a brighter 2021.

Our community fireworks display was created to coincide with our Community Clap, with residents encouraged to stand on their doorstep to applaud the key workers and frontline staff who have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic. The localised events replaced the usual Civic Centre early evening and Quayside midnight fireworks displays and were communicated as such.

The five displays that launched simultaneously across the city were designed so residents could see them from their doorstep and could be enjoyed safely without crowds gathering in a fixed location and risking further spread of Covid19. This was to ensure that recent Government and Public Health England restrictions prohibiting outdoor events & promoting the “stay at home” messages were adhered to at all times.

Although the fireworks event team cleared the majority of debris from the individual sites on the night it was always the intention that a cleansing team would revisit the site on the next working day, Monday 4th January, during daylight hours to remove any remaining debris left in the parks, as detailed to the individual site managers.

Immediately following the display, the firing area was cleared using litter-pickers and rakes. However, because of low light in Heaton Park, it was difficult for the team to completely clear away the firing area.

The majority of the plastic items were part of the fusing system and not the fireworks themselves. As such, the plastic items from this display would have been in a relatively small area around the launch position and not spread over the entire park area, as indicated in some reports. The use of plastic is kept to a minimum and the firework display company are striving to eliminate this completely. Some of the debris shown in the various reports was from retail fireworks and concurs with reports of people setting off fireworks in the Heaton Park area and other locations across the city at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

NE1, the city centre’s Business Improvement District, funded these fireworks in replacement of the usual city centre displays. Consideration of a more sustainable option in the form of a laser show was considered and to be trialled as part of the New Year’s Eve celebrations by NE1. Unfortunately, this had to be cancelled at relatively short notice as a result of emerging news of the new variant strain of Covid-19 for obvious public health reasons. As a city, we have been exploring novel illuminated installations and will continue to investigate alternative options.

NICK FORBES, Newcastle City

Council leader