When Civic Trust Was Torched and the Report Went Up in Smoke
“In Oswestry, when the rockets misfire, it’s not just the fireworks that vanish — it’s the truth.”
Picture this: 2nd November 2024. The skies above Cae Glas Park were lit with explosions — not of celebration, but confusion, mismanagement, and delayed bangs. What was advertised as a free, family-friendly spectacle became, in the words of one attendee, “a shambolic event” featuring closed gates, poor food, mass bottlenecks, and a public exodus through darkened, unlit exits onto live roads.
That much we know. What followed, however, may go down as one of the most audacious feats of municipal misdirection since the invention of the smoke bomb.
🎠Act I: The Mayor Who Wasn’t There — Except He Was
Mayor Mike Isherwood — “not speaking on behalf of the Council” (a helpful disclaimer) — insisted repeatedly that he bore no responsibility for the event, stating:
“I was not personally involved in the planning… Council officers do the work of the Council.”
And yet, this same non-involved mayor also knew:
- Why the Brogyntyn site was no longer used.
- That “emergency services and the Safety Advisory Group” were allegedly involved.
- That volunteers were “fully fire-trained” and numbers managed with “infrared beams.”
For someone at such a lofty, non-involved altitude, His Worship seems curiously informed about the ground-level logistics.
But the pièce de résistance? His dismissal of public concerns about the event being “free”:
“It’s free to go to the park. It’s free to borrow a library book. It’s free to send your kids to school. It was free to go to the fireworks.”
Except, of course, it wasn’t. It was taxpayer funded. As Dylan Wyn Jones put it with unimpeachable clarity:
“Where do you think OTC gets its revenue from?”
Dylan’s letter reads like a masterclass in civic accountability — or rather, the lack thereof. He accused the Mayor of hiding behind legalisms and refusing responsibility, concluding with a modest offer to “advise OTC on the principles of leadership and management.” An offer that, one imagines, has not yet been accepted.
🔥 Act II: SAG — The Dog That Didn’t Bark https://www.hse.gov.uk/event-safety/safety-advisory-groups.htm
Let’s return to the Mayor’s claim that “the plan had all the approvals needed… [including] the Safety Advisory Group.”
This would be comforting — if it were true.
It wasn’t.
The Shropshire Council Safety Advisory Group (SAG), the very body tasked with advising on safety at large-scale public events, stated bluntly in response to an FOI:
“No meeting was held.”
“No advice was given.”
Which raises the inconvenient question: Who approved this event?
Because it certainly wasn’t the Safety Advisory Group. The fireworks may have gone up — but the safety standards went down in flames.
To stage a public event of that size — with pyrotechnics, food stalls, temporary structures, an expected attendance of 5,000 to 9,000 — without a shred of recorded SAG oversight is not just an oversight. It’s a dereliction. And if done knowingly, it may stray dangerously close to the legal territory of…
Misconduct in Public Office — a Common Law offence defined as the wilful neglect of duty or abuse of public trust, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Yes, life. Not for organising fireworks. But for knowingly putting the public at risk and burying the evidence under a smouldering pile of administrative ash.
đź“ś Act III: The Review That Vanished
On 6th November 2024, Oswestry Town Council, in solemn session, resolved to:
“Undertake a review of the Firework Evening and for this to include input from an independent advisor… [with] a report then brought to Council in the public domain.”
That was the promise. That was the resolution. That was democracy.
By March 2025, however, the report had apparently been spirited away into a closed session, its contents hidden from public view. The Town Clerk later claimed it had been presented with reasons “recorded in the minutes.”
Only… the minutes contain no such thing. No title. No item. No legal justification. No vote. No Schedule 12A exemption. No proof the report exists at all. This is not just procedural amnesia. This is deliberate obfuscation.
The report was promised publicly. No vote overturned that promise.
To quote from the Nolan Principles of Public Life: this stinks.
⚖️ Final Act: Accountability Delayed, But Not Denied
The Clerk now refuses further comment, citing “the pre-election period” — as though reviewing a dangerous public failure is somehow equivalent to political campaigning. The community, meanwhile, is left with empty statements, missing minutes, and a toxic smoke cloud of suspicion.
This is not about fireworks. This is about trust.
The public deserves to know:
- Who planned the event?
- Who approved it?
- Why safety protocols were bypassed?
- Why the promised report was buried?
Because when councillors deflect, and reports vanish, and safety advice is ghosted — it stops being about events and starts being about integrity.
And frankly, when public scrutiny is doused with this much damp paper, one has to ask:
Whose backside is being so vigorously protected?
💨 And So…
If this is Oswestry’s new definition of transparency, then Orwell is spinning in his grave fast enough to qualify as a small generator.
A public event. A promised review. A hidden report. A false claim about safety approval.
And officials who, when questioned, act like it’s the public who are being unreasonable.
We are not dealing with poor governance. We are witnessing a full pyrotechnic display of civic deceit.
So I ask — not rhetorically:
What else is Oswestry Town Council keeping under wraps?
The Alternative Council 