A county council has successfully taken legal action to prevent the informal attaching of flags to lampposts.
Oxfordshire County Council gained a permanent injunction last month to prevent flags being attached to columns, following being granted an interim injunction against four individuals to stop raising flags.
As reported by the BBC, Mr Justice Dexter Dias argued he was handing down the injunction because: “There is little prospect absent an injunction that it will stop.”
He added: “Although the claimant has repeatedly removed unauthorised flags, more flags are later affixed.”
Justice Dias also highlighted that council employees or contractors had been “obstructed” when trying to remove them, and that workers “faced abuse or intimidation while taking flags down, as well as residents”.
Maintenance teams had been “working in fear”, had been told to wear face coverings, and had even been forced to check vehicles for tracking tags after the publishing of a worker’s home address, he said.
Again according to the BBC, the council estimated it had spent about £80,000 removing the flags. Earlier this summer, it was similarly reported that Southampton Council had spent more than £8,000 in the past year removing Union and St George’s flags from columns.
Oxford County Council leader Tim Bearder said of the ruling: “This is a welcome judgment. We’re very pleased with the result.”
Referring to the Raise The Colours group behind the flags, he described them as “very challenging people, not patriots”.
The council however, he added, “proudly” flew the union and St George’s flags at County Hall and “fully supports” the right of residents to display their own flags.
The ILP has warned in guidance of the dangers to public health and safety of unofficial attachments to lighting columns, both in terms of members of the public accessing columns and the possible impact on a column’s structural integrity.
Similar to reported in Oxfordshire, ILP members have also told of council teams being subjected to verbal abuse and harassment from the public while removing flags and other attachments.
Image: an unofficial flag attached a lighting column in Derbyshire. Image courtesy of Rob Baines, Chair of the ILP’s Local Authority Lighting Committee.
