Blackheath’s fireworks could return this November for the first time in six years – but as a ticketed event with an admission charge.

Up to 100,000 people used to attend the annual display, which had been running since the 1980s, boosting trade in pubs and restaurants across a wide area.

The last event was in 2019, with the pandemic scuppering the 2020 display. After that, Lewisham Council said it could not afford the cost of the event because of government funding cuts.

Both Lewisham and Greenwich councils used to split the cost equally, but Greenwich pulled out in 2010, leaving Lewisham to find private donations and sponsorship. Greenwich came back on board as a sponsor in 2015, but only paid a small portion of the overall cost of the display.

Now a private business, Slammin Events, has applied to Lewisham to hold an event for up to 30,000 people on November 1. The Blackheath Society, which first reported the news in an update to its members, said that tickets would be about £15 for over-16s and between £5 and £10 for children.

The company has asked for a licence that would be valid for a one-day event each year “between the last week of October and the second week of November”, involving fencing off part of the heath between All Saints Church and the A2, including Prince Charles Road. Comments need to be with Lewisham Council by July 30.

Austerity policies have largely killed off London’s free Bonfire Night displays, with the Blackheath show – which had been put on by the Greenwich-based company Emergency Exit Arts – among the last to survive.

The final event cost Lewisham Council £121,000, with Greenwich contributing £16,300. In 2019, this website revealed that Greenwich had tried to help its neighbour by brokering a sponsorship deal with London City Airport, but Lewisham refused because of the airport’s plans to expand – its flightpath runs over the borough and the council had objected on noise grounds.

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