The surprising cost of removing 'tatty' Union Jack flags from lampposts
Council says removing worn-out flags could cost hundreds each
The bill for removing ‘tatty’ national flags from lampposts looks set to cost a council ‘hundreds of pounds’ each.
Coun Keith Anderson, Wakefield Council’s cabinet member for highways, revealed the cost of taking down St George and Union Jack flags, which appeared on public property across the district last year, as an opposition councillor urged him to take action.
In November, the council’s former Labour administration said the flags would be allowed to “stay up for now” after more than 3,000 residents responded to a public consultation over the issue.
At the time, senior councillors said they would only be removed if they caused a safety risk or highway obstruction.
Details of the financial implications of removing flags were heard after Green Party council Kate Dodd raised the issue at a full council meeting
She said: “It’s about what plans the council has to remove the disgracefully unpatriotic flags that have been left to droop and decay from lampposts across our district.
“These are an eyesore and the very opposite of an expression of national pride.”
Coun Dodd said the council’s policy for flags flown from its own public buildings was for them to be “clean, undamaged and in good condition.”
She said: “And yet across our district, flying from our lampposts, there flags that are very far from that description.
“When are we going to see them removed?”
Coun Anderson replied: “At the moment we are looking at what we want to do with regard to existing flags across the whole of the district that are looking tatty and worn.
“It’s not as easy as just going with a set of ladders and cutting it down.
“Unfortunately we now live in a world of the Health and Safety Executive. It’s a lot more work involved.
“Those people who put them up, it was very easy for them, they just ran around with a set of ladders and put them up.”
Coun Anderson said traffic management schemes had to be put in place before carrying out the work and a scissor lift had to be used to take flags down.
He said: “Every flag will cost us hundreds of pounds to remove. So we have got to find a strategy of how we do that and take that forward.
“We are currently under discussions of how we look at how we do that because I’ve seen them around and they do look tatty.
“It’s not what we want to see of our national flag.”