London New Year fireworks boss all set for display

The head honcho of London's New Year's Eve firework display, is "just a bit nervous".

Why? "Because everything seems to be going really smoothly," says Darryl Fleming.

Tens of thousands of people will attend one of the capital's biggest annual events later, with millions more tuning in to watch on TV.

A spokesperson for the London mayor confirmed the event would go ahead and said the capital was "set for a spectacular night of fireworks from the banks of the Thames to welcome in the new year".

As display director at Titanium Fireworks, Mr Fleming is the person whose job is to make sure it all goes to plan.

Nerves aside, he is confident he and his team of experts have prepared for all eventualities.

He told BBC London they had a high degree of control over the display, and can remove specific fireworks from certain locations.

"Often it's things you can't plan that will come along and cause problems," he said.

"Like everything, it's experience and just having that knowledge of what can go wrong and planning for it and getting ourselves in the best position."

Rain is expected and "is not a problem" - unlike the wind.

"The big enemy is the wind, so we have to plan for that in the design stage.

"We don't have massive big shells that have a high chance of being taken out of a show.

"By having that in the planning stage, in the design process, then it minimises the amount of containment we have to do.

"We monitor the wind from a week out, we are looking at and monitoring the weather conditions.

"The [wind] direction is in the right direction, and if we need to curtail parts of the show, we can do that, we have all those plans in place.

"We are looking forward to delivering a full show."

New Year firework displays in Edinburgh and Blackpool were cancelled yesterday over high winds, but Mr Fleming is confident that London's will go ahead.

His team had already decided to alter the angle of the fireworks "slightly into the wind, so we can increase that safety distance".

He added: "Ultimately, if the wind is strong enough that we feel that some of the debris might be falling beyond the safety zones, then we can just remove that.

"From a broadcast point of view nobody is really going to see the difference and everybody will still enjoy the show, but we know we will be delivering it as safely as possible."

Despite all the planning and the decisions taken to maximise safety, Mr Fleming's nerves will remain until it is all over.

"It won't be until about eleven minutes past midnight on 1 January when I can relax and just have a bit of relief."

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