THE fireworks season is well underway. If recent experience is repeated, it will last until well after New Year. Bang goes our peace and quiet.

But there is some good news. This should be the last time we suffer a four-month fireworks night.

We are not anti-firework. Few events can rival the thrill of the November 5 sound and light spectacular. As the birthplace of Guy Fawkes, York has a special reason to enjoy the festivities.

If the pyrotechnics were limited to Bonfire Night, December 31 and special events, such as those held at Castle Howard, no one would complain.

Unfortunately, however, fireworks are seemingly available to all from September onwards. And that is a recipe for broken sleep, shattered nerves and worse.

The first problem is accessibility. A voluntary code supposedly restricts the sale of fireworks to the month around November 5. And sale to the under-18s is outlawed. However, the nightly detonations testify that neither code nor law is being obeyed.

The second problem is the size of the fireworks. These are not back garden bangers and rockets. They are powerful explosives.

Some of them are so loud they make it sound like war has been declared on peaceful suburbs. Old people, children and animals are particularly frightened by the nightly recreation of the Blitz.

We are therefore grateful that City of York Trading Standards is planning a crackdown on the sale of fireworks.

And we are must also thank Scottish Labour MP Bill Tynan, whose Fireworks Bill, backed by the Government, received Royal Assent last month. From next year it will only allow free sale of fireworks near Bonfire Night, outlaw the noisiest ones, impose an 11pm curfew on their use and introduce a licensing system. Peace at last. We hope.

Updated: 10:16 Thursday, October 02, 2003