Pontoons at The Great Lake at Himley Hall and Park have been used in Dudley Council's annual bonfire night event to launch industrial firework displays, threatening wildlife and the environment with persistent chemicals which are also hazardous to human health. Perchlorates which give fireworks their colour and metal salts are endocrine disruptors and persist in sediments indefinitely and are harmful to fish and wildlife if ingested. Fireworks create a toxic fog of fine particulates, poisonous aerosols and heavy metals.

The roosting wildfowl on the lake are harmed by these displays, at a time when avian flu is present at this site and in the Dudley Borough. Recent research by Anglia Ruskin University has found that firework displays cause wild birds to suffer significant distress, and researchers have recommended that displays do not take place in areas with large wildlife populations.

The decision to allow 22,000 people into this event in conjunction with launching the display in the current circumstances where the council are asking people to avoid disturbing birds was an ill-conceived and reckless decision by Dudley Council and motivated by avarice.
We urge them to limit the scale of this event in future and reduce the impact on birds and wildlife around the lake by desisting from launching any more fireworks from the water.