Private beacon lighting ceremony in Lickey Hills causes anger amongst residents

Nearby residents have criticised the event, which was held on Thursday, June 2, as they believe it should have been made public and well-advertised.

The official beacon lighting ceremony for Bromsgrove District was held in Sander’s Park whilst another official tribute was held in Victoria Square in Birmingham.

Worcestershire county councillor for Beacon Adrian Kriss and members from the Lickey Hills Society which look after the country park attended the small ceremony on Beacon Hill.

When Cllr Kriss applied to Birmingham City Council for a beacon lighting event, the council said they were well underway “for the city’s official event” and park teams only have “finite resources”.

“The Beacon is such a prominent location there would have been a major issue with crowd and vehicle control,” said Cllr Kriss.

“We would have had to undertake a full event plan and risk assessment.

“Due to the exceedingly late permission granted by Birmingham City Council for use of the Monument Lane car park and topogragh it was impossible to put everything in place.

“Therefore, the only way the beacon lighting was to go ahead was for this private event.

Beacon lighting ceremony.

“The reason the event was held was to respect the Queen and we stuck by the rules that were laid down by the park rangers.”

However resident Linda Cooper said it should have been a “whole community tribute”.

She said: “In this day and age it doesn’t take long to write up a risk assessment and it only takes a phone call and email to the relevant services.

“The most important aspect of this debacle is it was an event to celebrate our Queens 70 years on the throne.

“An event that is very rare and may not happen for a very long time. It was our tribute to the Queen, the whole communities’ tribute, not just Rubery but Bromsgrove district itself.”

Bromsgrove District Councillor for Rubery North, Peter McDonald, said he has been contacted by many Rubery residents who feel they “were denied the once in a lifetime opportunity”.

He said: “Other lightings in the district and county were advertised, welcoming the public and the question has to be asked, why were only a selected few informed of this event and how were they chosen above the general public?"

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: “At the point we were approached in April to consider an event at Lickey Hills, plans were already well underway for the city’s official event. Our parks team only have finite resources available and this was made clear to those seeking to stage an event Lickey Hills.”

Lickey Hills Society then contacted the council for permission to hold a low-key activity as “although they had insufficient time or funding to organise a full event” the group still wanted to commemorate the Queen’s reign.

The spokesperson added: “We permitted the lighting of the beacon only with appropriate security and this was supported by two of our rangers on an out-of-hours basis.

“The event organisers chose not to advertise the event to minimise risk of the activity being overwhelmed, and this enabled the event to be staged as planned.”