This year’s annual Shaldon and Teignmouth bonfire and fireworks display is under threat after Teignmouth Town Council threatened to withdraw support for the event.

The annual Teignmouth and Shaldon bonfire and fireworks is the only free-to-attend pyrotechnic event in the area. It is organised jointly by Teignmouth Town Council and Shaldon Parish Council with a bonfire lit on Shaldon beach and fireworks launched from the Point Beach in Teignmouth.

Funding for the event is partly generated by donations made on the night with additional resources being provided by Teignmouth Town Council and Shaldon Parish Council.

Councillors at a Teignmouth Town Council events committee meeting held on January 7 proposed that the Council should ‘not move forward with the fireworks this year’.

However, Shaldon Parish Council were ‘totally blindsided and shocked by the decision’. ‘Shaldon Parish Council feels very let down,’ said Shaldon Parish Councillor and chair of the bonfire and fireworks committee Jo Cumbley. ‘We have not been told the reasons, but we understand it is not financial,’ she added.

Speaking at the latest Teignmouth Town Council meeting on Tuesday January 21, Jo urged Teignmouth Town Council to reconsider its decision to withdraw financial and logistical support for the event.

She cited the event as a great example of two neighbouring councils working together to produce the hugely popular event that attracts thousands of people who spend money in local businesses outside the main summer season.

She urged Teignmouth Town Councillors ‘as true representatives of the townspeople’ to ‘urgently reconsider the decision not to support the bonfire and fireworks’.

Teignmouth Mayor, councillor Cate Williams reported that the town council had arranged a meeting with Shaldon Parish Council to discuss the matter on February 5. Teignmouth Town Council’s events committee will then revisit the issue at their next meeting before a final decision is made at the next full Teignmouth Council meeting.