An update from Councillor Michael Dixon 

Last night Castle Point Council was due to discuss my motion. I had originally put forward my motion regarding the Fireworks to Council in November. My intention was to bring back the fireworks show to Castle Point as a great community event that would serve the community without creating disruption to the local area. For that reason, I proposed the below amendments to my motion.

"We call on Castle Point Borough Council to reintroduce a new version of the Firework Fiesta for residents. A safe, well organised community event that helps to reduce the need for the use of fireworks at home adversely effecting residents and traumatising pets and wildlife. To minimise this risk further, we also call on the council to explore the use of laser and light shows as an alternative, similar to councils elsewhere are now doing and we further ask that the council follows the successful examples of other Essex Councils in allowing outside charitable or community organisations to run the event using local business sponsorship to remove any burden on the taxpayer"

This was, however, not allowed by the council officer, and so I felt I was left with no option but to withdraw my motion. I felt it could not go forward if we had to, as a council use thousands of pounds of reserve funds to make the event cost neutral.

Castle Point as a supposed Commercial Council, could and should have explored other avenues such as speaking with local businesses and community groups for sponsorship.