“It’s going to be an absolute nightmare,” said Scott, a local resident, as he surveyed the damage caused after another night of fireworks disorder on Hay Avenue in Niddrie, a suburb in the south-east of Edinburgh.
The road was scorched with firework marks and in need of repair, while a discarded brick lay on the street. Local residents have tidied what they could of the remnants of fireworks, but Scott said they were worried this was only the beginning.
After years of increasingly violent clashes in areas of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee between police and crowds throwing fireworks and other missiles in the run-up to Bonfire Night, Scotland have introduced firework controls for the first time.
Under the measures, which run from 1 to 10 November, anyone setting off private fireworks during this period will be committing a criminal offence.
In the first initiative of its kind the UK, the new zones are being enforced in the Balerno, Calton Hill, Niddrie and Seafield areas of Edinburgh. Dealing with antisocial behaviour is not the driving force in all of the areas; in Balerno and Seafield, for example, the applications were made due to concerns over animal welfare at local centres. How successful these are is likely to influence whether other councils across the country follow suit.
The most recent violence in Niddrie took place on Halloween, when buses were attacked with bricks. A police officer was injured after a brick was thrown through their vehicle and a 14-year-old boy was arrested.
But when the Guardian visited the next day, local residents expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the new measures.
Joanna Dembak would like to see better policing in the area. “I think the police don’t manage it very well, they should have more authority over those kids. They should do more so they [the kids] are afraid of doing anything. I think the law is not in the right place,” she said.
In the Southside of Glasgow, local people tell a similar story. Gillian Argo, the owner of Square Park Coffee, was preparing for another night of loud noise from fireworks set off by teenagers on the streets in Pollokshields, an area where previously groups have launched fireworks at cars, people and residential properties.
The aftermath could be seen on her morning walk to work, including an unexploded firework next to the local children’s play park.
“I don’t understand how they’re getting ahold of them, I don’t see why we can just decide fireworks cannot be sold to members of the public,” Argo said.
The concerns were not simply about how the teenagers acquired the fireworks, she added. “My husband works in pyrotechnics and asked if I could send a picture of the label on it … it turns out there was more bang in that firework than the stuff he uses in stadium shows, and there’s just kids launching them at each other.”
Walking around the area, the local Scottish Green party councillor Jon Molyneux agreed there should be tighter restrictions on the sale of fireworks, but added that he was campaigning for citywide controls so as to not vilify particular areas of Glasgow.
“I’d rather we had one that covered the entire city. There’s a slight risk of stigmatising, in kind of drawing a line on a map and saying: ‘This side OK and this side not OK’,” Molyneux said.
An administrative error from Glasgow city council meant that planned control zones in Pollokshields did not go ahead this season. Molyneux shared his frustration that firework-related issues had started already in the area and nothing would be done to deter it this year.
“It’s not just for one night of the year, certainly in this area it’s for four to six weeks usually. Among the population you’ve got people with various experiences of trauma, people with neurodivergencies, people with pets. Lots of folk for whom it actively makes their life a misery,” he said.
Last year, concerns were raised that the disorder was organised to lure police to the area to target them. David Threadgold, the chair of Scottish Police Federation, said we was in “no doubt” that the disorder was planned and the issues did not just concern the young people involved.
“While there has been an element of youth disorder in this, it was at the very least being facilitated if not entirely coordinated by adults within society in Scotland. We should have a much better intelligence picture this year to be proactive in the way we’re dealing with those who are intent on that type of activity,” he said.
Police Scotland has confirmed it will deploy specially trained public order officers during Bonfire Night to protect local policing teams from attack.
Launching Operation Moonbeam in advance of fireworks season, the assistant chief constable Tim Mairs said: “I want to make it clear that those responsible for endangering the lives of police officers, other emergency service workers, or members of the public will be identified and will be brought to justice.”
• This article was amended on 4 November 2024 to make clear that the introduction of firework control zones is not in relation to tackling antisocial behaviour in all of the areas, and that other concerns such as animal welfare are also factors.
