DISPOSABLE BBQS: Swansea told to leave them at home as First Minister backs halt on sales

Swansea Council is urging residents and visitors to leave disposable barbecues at home while the hot, dry weather continues, as pressure grows on shops across Wales to stop selling them altogether.

Cllr Andrew Stevens, the council’s cabinet member for environment and infrastructure and a farmer in the city, said most fields, parks and farmland across Swansea and Gower are extremely dry.

“We know that disposable BBQs may have been the cause of some wildfires in other parts of the country,” he said. “This is something we can avoid if we stop using them while these hot and dry conditions continue.”

He said the council did not want to stop families enjoying the city’s beaches and parks this summer.

“The only thing we want to encourage, is not to use disposable BBQs in our parks, on farmland and other open spaces while we are in this very dry and hot period,” he said.

Fire services around Wales have issued similar advice, encouraging people to leave barbecues at home and take a picnic instead.

The council’s call came as First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth backed calls for retailers “big and small” to suspend sales of disposable barbecues during periods of extreme heat, echoing Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham.

“I absolutely support taking measures that could remove this risk as much as possible,” he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast. “We know that having naked flames and barbecues in tinder-dry places is not a very good idea.”

An outright ban is not in the Welsh Government’s gift. “It’s not something we’re able to do in terms of introducing a ban,” the First Minister said, meaning any halt in Wales rests on retailers acting voluntarily.

The issue was discussed at an emergency UK government Cobra meeting on Wednesday, which the First Minister attended. “Andy Burnham has made his view known. We all have responsibilities,” he said.

Some retailers have already stopped selling the barbecues under a voluntary framework agreed in 2023 between fire chiefs and the British Retail Consortium, which says sales should be suspended when an extreme heat event is imminent or at the evidence-based request of a council.

Mr Burnham said single-use grills had been behind a number of recent blazes and people should not be using them “at this moment in time”, with the UK government considering a summer ban in the longer term.

The whole of Wales has been in drought since the end of July, with the country receiving just 8% of its average July rainfall in the driest July for 190 years.

Swansea has seen the fire risk up close: flames broke out on Kilvey Hill above St Thomas homes last month, the third fire on the hillside in fifteen months.

Anyone who spots a wildfire should move to a safe location and call 999. The First Minister said the hot, dry summer had already had “pretty devastating consequences” in terms of drought and wildfires.