A firework display and Bonfire Night event which has been running for nearly 80 years is set to return to Beckenham this year.

Beckenham Charity Fireworks, which takes place in Croydon Road Recreational Ground in Bromley, is an annual firework display event which will take place on the Saturday before November 5.

Up until 2018, the event was run by the Beckenham Round Table before being overtaken by the 5th Beckenham South Scout Group.

Chris Martin, one of the organisers of the event, told the News Shopper: “I’m a member of the 5th Beckenham South Scout Group, and we took over running the event around six years ago.

“We organise the fireworks, as well as over events like an Easter egg hunt on Good Friday, as a community event in order to raise money for ourselves and local charities.

“We’ve been running the event ever since then, and it’s been suddenly getting bigger and bigger.”

The fireworks have been running every year since 1946, except for 2020 when public events were cancelled due to the pandemic.

This year’s event will continue to have stalls ran by members of the community.

Chris added: “We take over Croydon Road Recreational Ground and we organise an event which has a fairground and 24 food and drinks stalls.”

There are also two firework displays throughout the night, one for children with autism, and a much larger one later in the evening.

Chris explained: “We have a quieter display that was originally designed for autistic children and those with sensory issues, but it’s still a fabulous display, just smaller and less noisy.

“What we found is that a lot of the families with younger children are very keen on that, so we have that.

“Then at 6pm, we have a much larger main display.

“And since it’s a community event, we encourage families and people to come along and use the fairgrounds and the stalls of food and drink.”

Chris said it’s common for people to come for the first firework display and return for the second one.

This year’s event is taking place on November 2, rather than November 9 (the Saturday after Bonfire Night).

Chris explained that the reason behind this decision is because of Remembrance Day.

He said: “Remembrance Sunday is always the weekend after.

“And the reason that’s an issue is, being a Scout Group, we always play a big part in the Remembrance Parade in Beckenham.

“We’d all be absolutely exhausted setting up the event on the Saturday, and the next day marching up and down the High Street.”

Planning for the event started in the summer, around June and July, and the set up begins at around 7am on the Saturday.

Chris explained that they close Croydon Road Recreational Ground in the afternoon to make sure it’s safe, before greeting people at 4.30pm.

Money from the event goes to the Scout Group charity itself, as well as multiple others, including Bromley Youth Trust, Lewisham Donation Hub, Bromley and Croydon Women’s Aid, and Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice.

Chris said: “In 2022, we gave £10,000 to a local food bank, and we try to support smaller charities.

“We try to support charities with a youth element, because we’re Scouts.

“But the other way we support charities is that the event is run by volunteers, and so we have around 80 marshals that come along and help us run the event, making sure the public stays safe.

“And we recruit those volunteers from local charities and volunteer organisations, and we give them a fee based on the surplus we make.

“So, it’s an easy way for a charity to do its own fundraising and send a few people along to help us out, and then we can pay them money from that.”

Chris said that the best thing about the event personally is the coming together of communities and enjoying being there.

The event itself has remained the same over the last few years, with the only major difference being that it had to become a ticketed event.

Chris explained that before people would turn up and pay at the door, but with the event growing in popularity, they’ve had to make people by the tickets in advance.

Many fireworks display in south London have been cancelled this year, including the Round Table Carshalton Fireworks, Carshalton Parks Fireworks, and Blackheath Fireworks.

He added: “I suspect the reason for all these firework cancellations are because of the amount of compliance and organisation and crowd control that you need nowadays to run a large event is getting more and more difficult.

“We have a bit of a head start because we’ve run the event before and we have a lot of experience, but I can fully understand why people don’t feel they can take the risk of running these events.”

Beckenham Charity Fireworks will begin at 4.30pm on November 2, followed by the quieter display at 6pm, and then the main fireworks display at 7.15pm.