Review into town's fireworks fiasco

Locals were left furious at the event at Cae Glas park last Saturday (November 2) with various people calling it “a shambles”.It was delayed by more than an hour due to “safety reasons” with members of the public saying they were asked to move from fencing as it was “too close” to the display.

Claims were made about poor management of the event, with people also complaining about “extremely poor” communication.The display was organised by Oswestry Town Council, in partnership with Borderland Rotary Club. The town council quickly apologised, saying the last thing it wanted was for families to leave feeling disappointed and let down.

The event was discussed at an Oswestry Town Council meeting on Wednesday evening (November 6) with members agreeing that an independent person should review what went wrong.

“It’s not an experience we want the public to have,” said town clerk, Arren Roberts.“It was a very difficult evening and clearly we need to put steps in place to ensure this does not happen again.

“We’ve taken some immediate action and our priorities are events that are coming up with the Christmas lights switch-on next week and then Christmas Music Live a couple of weeks later. These are tried and tested events but nevertheless we have made some changes.“

We’ve recognised there are significant lessons to learn and we’ve made those immediately. We do need to carry out a review of Saturday night to identify what went wrong and why. I will bring the report forward which will be in the public domain.“

We’ve taken on board all of the feedback and criticism that we’ve had. Clearly we need to consider this event in this location but that’s for a future meeting.“

The scope of this needs to include leadership, roles and responsibilities, communication and the overall stewardship of the event. It’s an event delivered in partnership and clearly other parties are involved and are implicated.”Councillor Duncan Kerr recommended an indepdendent review.“

Due to the reaction , I think we need to have an independent person to do the review which will give us due diligence and reassurance in holding future events,” he said.

“I know there will be a cost to that, but I don’t think we can proceed without that reassurance.”Mr Roberts said he would welcome that.“Clearly this needs to be robust and, as officers, we need to make sure that this is done so,” said Mr Roberts.