Councillors have voted to ban disposable barbecues from the beaches of Brighton and Hove and from council-owned parks and spaces.
They also agreed to an identical ban on balloon and lantern releases at a meeting at Hove Town Hall last night (Tuesday 15 March).
The prohibitions are included in a “public space protection order” (PSPO) and those breaking the rules could be issue with a £100 fine.
A disposable barbecue is believed to have been the cause of a major fire at Brighton and Hove City Council’s waste transfer station in Hollingdean in August 2019.
Labour councillor Theresa Fowler has been pushing for a ban and asked for a report to set out alternatives to disposable barbecues such as communal fire pits.
These would allow people to have a barbecue if they don’t have a garden or outdoor space.
Last night, Councillor Fowler told the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee: “I have sat on the beach enjoying the sea air only to have someone sit next to me and light up a barbecue.
“I have extremely sensitive eyes and have had to move as my eyes have been streaming.
“I’ve had several complaints from residents who suffer from asthma and it causes concern for them.”
She has also campaigned for an end to balloon releases because they are harmful to wildlife and led a deputation to the council in 2018 calling for a ban before she won her seat.
Conservative councillor Robert Nemeth called for a delay to the disposable barbecue ban until a report on providing communal barbecues, barbecue areas and no-barbecue beaches could go before a future committee.
Councillor Nemeth said: “It’s very easy for someone with a garden who can store a decent barbecue to ban someone else’s fun so I have a problem with that.
“The general thought of a tourist town trying to take away fun things on the beach does slightly trouble.
“It is possible to use a single-use barbecue responsibly. It’s not possible to use a lantern responsibly. The person could take it (the barbecue) home or put it in the right bin.”
He said that banning lanterns and balloon releases was a “no brainer” because people could not operate them responsibly.
Green and Labour councillors backed Councillor Fowler’s request over Councillor Nemeth’s.
Green councillor Jamie Lloyd said that disposable barbecues were a sign of a disposable society when people should be able to create a fire to cook on themselves.
He said: “They are an absolute disaster environmentally. You can’t recycle them. They create a toxic fug over the beach on a hot summer afternoon or evening which is absolutely horrible.
“They caused a bin fire at the depot. This is serious stuff. How much did that cost us from one disposable barbecue?
“I understand the equalities issues but they weren’t around when I was a kid and I didn’t notice everyone’s quality of life improving when they were invented.”
Councillor Lloyd said that a public consultation found that an overwhelmingly majority favoured banning disposable barbecues on the beach and council land.
The consultation ran from November to January and, of 671 responses, 79 per cent agreed with a ban. Even more backed a ban on balloon and lantern releases, with 87 per cent in support.
The PSPO, which comes into force on Friday 1 July, will allow people to use non-disposable barbecues after 6pm on beaches where they are permitted.
Barbecues of all types are banned from the beaches between the two piers, between Hove Street and Fourth Avenue, on Hove Lawns and the promenade or its surrounding walls.
Waitrose and Aldi no longer sell disposable barbecues while the Co-op has banned them from stores in or within a mile of a national park.
If non-disposable barbeques are permitted in certain areas the ashes will presumably just be tipped out and roughly covered with shingle, so creating a potential barbeque hazard.
No there are BBQ bins right across the seafront.
As with most council policies the consequences don’t seem to have been considered. If disposable BBQs are banned, then people are likely to bring cheap non-disposable ones instead. However some of them won’t be taking them home (they are now drunk, going on elsewhere etc). So what happens to all the disposed of, non-disposable BBQs? Who will deal with these large items of litter?
I’m not saying that leaving them is right. But I’m sure lots will. And these BBQs cost much more to the environment to make than disposable ones. So could actually be making things worse not better (as we’ve seen with shopping bags in the recent Greenpeace report)
Even proper barbeques are a mystery to me. And disposable ones are even more of a by-word for bad cooking. Why not cook good food at home and take it to the beach?
Christopher Hawtree
So explain in simple terms how people are going to heat up their already cooked meals ?
Good salads. Flasks. All manner of possibilities. What’s more, barbeque food is cancerous.
The question was, how are people going to heat up their cooked meals?
My great auntie Phyllis was in her 90s when she had a stroke and ended up in a nursing home. She had lost her sight, and most of her sense of taste for food, but not once did she complain.
She was also respected in the home, because she’d been the District Nurse in that village. She’d also served in the war, but that’s not something most of us will understand now.
In the home, they did a good job in taking care of all their residents, but the food was a bit repetitive and bland. So, on one of my regular visits, I took along a barbecue, and we sat outside while I cooked chicken over the coals, and auntie Phyll could smell the food. I also took some cold snacks and a salad to go with the meat. Her face lit up at the experience.
I’m not a big fan of barbecue food but it’s a bit weird to read that one councillor thinks we should be cooking over an open fire instead – just because he disapproves of disposable barbecues.
As it happens, I can make a fire, and I could cook over that, but I don’t have outside space at my flat where that could happen, and I can’t really light a wood fire on the beach near me either – or not responsibly.
It’s worth mentioning that disposable barbecues CAN be recycled if the will is there, and it’s just a tin foil tray and grid – plus some charcoal embers or cinders which people like my auntie Phyll would have put on the soil in their vegetable patch.
For sure, some people don’t like the smoke or the smell of someone else’s cooking. But then why mix with others on crowded beach days if you can’t deal with that and need your privileged space?
Apparently, cooking is not banned under this latest fudge, it’s just that now we have to carry our portable bucket barbecues to the same beach, with a separate bag of charcoal, firelighters, and when we come to get rid of the cinders or unburnt charcoal we find the existing letter box yellow barbecue bins on the prom won’t work – as we try to responsibly empty our leftovers.
So the underlying mess problem, that the council don’t want to deal with, remains. Why didn’t they at least wait until communal barbecue areas were established as an alternative?
This council have got really good at banning things – and taking freedoms and services away – before they give any alternative back.
And have most councillors ever lived in a small flat in this city? Sometimes, smoke gets in your eyes and that’s just how it is.
Beware of the sausage and burger fascists. Would I get a better reaction if I was grilling halloumi or goat’s cheese?
So does that mean if I take my bbq to the beach it’s fine just as long as its not a disposal one. I hope they word it like that as I will laugh at any enforcement officer when the summer comes.
Councillor fowler looks like she has a lovely house, judging by that photo, it would seem she does not live in a flat. So what she is really calling for is a ban for people with less money on having BBQs. Greens obviously voted for this because they hate personal choice.
I love these council questionnaires, I’ve never seen one in my life, and I’ve lived here my entire life, the most un democratic way of deciding policy. You have an election and you state what you want to do over the next 5 years. The only time you dievate from those policy’s is times of crisis. A bbq on the beach is not a crisis.
Or can you just go bear grills (literally) and dig a hole, from ll it with burnable stuff and cook your food on that instead? Seems even worse to me, but i imagine that could be the next stage…
Ban, ban, ban. That is green (extreme socialist) and Labour (extreme socialist) for you. Cars will be next.
This is a long awaited ban,not only are barbecue extremely anti social but dangerous and disgusting when left behind. Unfortunately in Brighton and Hove there is never anybody patrolling the beach area to forcify these laws,ie.dogs on the beach, cyclists using the promenade, so what’s the point when people will carry on as they did knowing this.
I saw a gull step on a burning hot barbecue grill and its webbed foot was seriously damaged. This would have impacted its capacity to paddle in the sea, land safely and feed chicks.
The plastic wrappings of DBs are also a menace and often end up in the sea adding to the vast amount of plastic pollution. 11 million tonnes are dumped in the oceans every year.
There will soon be a global agreement on plastic pollution: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_1466
And we can’t lose more forests to the charcoal used in DBs.
Will begging for your drug dealer still be allowed in the town centre?
79% of 671 people who could even be bothered to voice an opinion on this.
What about the rest of the 250,000 + who couldn’t really care either way?
Clearly a huge majority in favour of a ban! Laughable, truly laughable….if it wasn’t so pathetic.