Woodley Allotments Set Bonfire Ban Rules

Rules now ban bonfires for most of the year at Reading Road Allotments in Woodley, near Shepherds Hill and the Marks & Spencer Food Hall.

Woodley Town Council manages the site with help from the Woodley Allotment Tenants Association. Bonfires are banned from Thursday, April 30 to Sunday, October 1, when tenants will be allowed to light bonfires after 4pm to burn wood and noxious weeds.

Town clerk Kevin Murray said: "From April 30, we are into the bonfire season, which prohibits those until October.

"The bonfire policy is a more detailed and expanded version of what’s included in the tenancy agreement, to be much more specific about what the requirements are and what the expectation is.

"The allotment tenants association has been very active in managing that, in talking to tenants about it, and instead of going down that enforcement route, they’ve been talking to tenants about it, they’ve been managing that through controlled, managed bonfires and talking to residents about it and collecting material so we don’t have anything like the amount of fires going on, so that’s worked quite well."

The council's leisure services committee approved a Bonfires Policy at the meeting on Tuesday, April 14.

James Aldridge, Local Democracy Reporter