Firework control zones: guidance for local authorities

Overview of the Firework Control Zones Working Group

The Firework Control Zones Working Group was made up of representatives from the following organisations:

• COSLA
• Police Scotland
• Scottish Community Development Centre
• Scottish Community Safety Network
• Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
• SOLAR; and
• Included practitioners from: Edinburgh City Council, Glasgow City Council, Scottish Borders Council, and West Lothian Council.

The Scottish Government committed to co-developing firework control zone guidance with stakeholders and communities. The Firework Control Zones Working Group was established as a short life working group to steer development of the guidance, with input from wider stakeholders and communities themselves. The Group was facilitated by the fireworks policy team in the Scottish Government, whose role included responsibility for chairing the deliberative workshops and providing a secretariat function. The purpose of the group was to drive forward the development of robust, evidence-based guidance for local authorities as a key element of the implementation and operationalisation of firework control zones in Scotland.

The Working Group met between January 2023 and June 2023 and took part in a series of deliberative workshops to consider all of the evidence available, and work through the different areas and topics covered in this guidance. Taking into account the output of the community workshops, and all available views and proposals from wider stakeholders, the group co-developed the guidance via a consensus building approach.

At the final meeting of the working group, on 6 June 2023, the group agreed the content of the guidance prior to publication on 22 June 2023.