AFTER almost a week of meetings, tensions, warnings and uncertainty, Belfast City Council blinked first yesterday in the stand-off with loyalists camped out in the carpark of Avoniel leisure centre.
When the clean up is complete, the damage caused to relationships with the community of Avoniel will be in need of some repair - but it needn't have been so.
Last year when the council proactively targeted problem fires at Bloomfield Walkway and Cluan Place, the dramatic scenes of masked contractors assisted by hundreds of riot police removing wood from dangerous pyres was met with a broad support from the majority of citizens of the city.
The cost of the operation was no doubt significant but the tough message it sent to those who continue to build dangerous structures was an important one.
A marker had been firmly laid.
Read more:
- Avoniel Leisure Centre due to be refurbished next year
- Allison Morris - Don't demonise young bonfire builders - help them have a better future (premium)
- Burning of tricolour on Newtownards bonfire 'blatant sectarianism'
On Sunday when the council sent in a contractor to lift 1,800 tyres from a bonfire at London Road in east Belfast, this was again welcomed, not just by the public but by mainstream unionists, including senior members of the DUP, who usually keep their head down at this time of the year.
Had a contractor lifted tyres from the nearby Avoniel site at the same time it also would have been broadly welcomed and another victory secured for the council.
However, on Monday afternoon when loyalists voluntarily removed tyres and reduced the size of the bonfire the time for compromise had arrived.
The council it seems, didn't recognise this, and, instead doubled down.
The hard targetting of a bonfire in a complex which is due for redevelopment in the next few months, made no sense.
With other fires on council and public property in Belfast untouched events around Avoniel seemed petty.
For a community already in many ways marginalised this only reinforced a growing persecution complex.
It also allowed paramilitary elements in the UVF to swoop in and position themselves as 'defenders' of loyalist culture.
The failure to secure a second contractor - after the first one pulled out having had their details written on walls in east Belfast - meant the council had no choice to but to call time on the endeavour.
However, even if they had, were masked contractors really going to manoeuvre themselves around an obstacle course of bouncy castles, burger vans and old ladies on deckchairs to forcibly remove a bonfire?
There should be no fires of any kind on council-owned land and those who build these fires need to do so with safety and sensitivity in mind or realise if they don't there will be consequences.
But councils and agencies across Northern Ireland must also be sensitive to the repercussions of the work that they are carrying out.
And for all those involved in taking the tensions out of bonfire season let events at Avoniel be a cautionary example of what not to do.
Read more:
- Video: Avoniel bonfire contractor leak 'highly unlikely' to have come from police
- Burning of tricolour on Newtownards bonfire 'blatant sectarianism'
- Belfast council will not remove bonfire from Avoniel Leisure Centre
