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Bonfire night problems in Skem?
By Steve Hanlon | November 6, 2008
I read this article on the BBC news website this morning saying that there had been fire-related problems in the Skelmerdale area (amongst others). I don’t know how it compares with previous years, but in the past I was always very impressed with the work that the local Police would do on Bonfire night to try and keep problems to a minimum.
I’m sure that they did the same this year and I hope that the fact that it was reported is more to do with the fire authorities getting their act together with press releases. However, bonfire night can be a real problem in many areas. I remember living in Harehills, Leeds when I was a postgraduate and on bonfire night our street looked like something out of a war-zone.
Bonfire night attracts some of the worst kinds of anti-social behaviour and vandalism. The police and fire authorities always do an amazing job keeping things under some sort of control. However, I don’t remember reports like this last year when the Council had a total ban on fires in some parts of the district. Perhaps they had a similar ban this year, but it wasn’t well publicised if it was.
I’m against banning things for the sake of it, but perhaps it’s time to start properly considering if we should tolerate the lighting of bonfires on Nov 5th. Keep them to public displays.
Update… Oops! Jude kindly informed me that the link above was actually just an underlined bit of text (which loses much of the point). That’ll teach me to trust the flock blogging tool without checking what’s published.
Topics: Local stuff |