Oxford fireworks display will be biggest yet
The fireworks display is set for tonight but won’t feature a bonfire
The annual fireworks display from Oxford Round Table is back again this year for the 56th time since it began in 1967.
Around 25 thousand people are expected to turn up to the charity event which has Over raised over £1m over the years.
‘We’ve spent more than ever before’
Neil Holdstock is from Oxford Round Table, he said: “We’re really excited and it’s been literally 12-months in the making, a lot of hard work, changes to the planning but we think what we’ve done is actually going to enhance the event.
“What we’ve done this year is spend a considerable amount of money on the actual fireworks display and spent more than ever before and it’s a bigger display and slightly longer at 20 minutes long.”
This year the event won’t feature a bonfire, as Neil says “we went to the council and stakeholders and we suggested a smaller bonfire but we heard just the word bonfire meant that we wouldn’t be able to have the event and the licence wouldn’t be granted.
“We’re hoping it’s just a sabbatical year and a one-off but we’ll have to see how this year goes and if we’ll bring it back in the future”.
He added: “we genuinely think that you’ll be blown away by this years pyro-musical”
Last year the event received complaints about the way it left parts of South Park after around 20,000 people attended.
This year additional safety measures will be in place to protect the ground at South Park, including the use of the temporary roadway both under the funfair and for vehicle access.
Neil said: “We built the event plan based on having as bad weather as last year, which means we’ve got over 2km of metal tank trackway which means no vehicle should leave the trackway onto the grass.
“One of the things we’ve been doing over the last 11-months is talking to people and local residents as we did make a mess last year which we didn’t mean to. It was just the way it an planned out and our weather plan didn’t work.
“So, we’ve been making sure that people are heard, and their concerns are heard and understood, so that we could build the changes into the event plan.