Bankrupt council to spend £2.6m removing British flags from streets
Birmingham city council said its plan to remove British flags lining the streets will cost £2.6m.
The bankrupt council – run by a coalition of the Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents – last month launched legal action to ban raising Union Flags or St George's Crosses.
Around 20,000 flags were installed on lamp posts across Birmingham as part of Operation Raise the Colours, a movement in favour of promoting national pride.
According to documents submitted to the High Court, removal will cost the equivalent of £132 per flag because of "safety concerns".
Opponents of the removal project said taxpayers were "entitled to ask how spending millions taking flags down could possibly be the right priority".
Birmingham city council has more than £3.5bn of debt, the most of any local authority in the country. In September 2023, it issued a section 114 notice, effectively declaring itself bankrupt , after more than a decade of Labour majority control.
The council was forced to raise council tax for next year by 4.99pc, the maximum increase allowed without holding a referendum.
Birmingham city council is the most indebted local authority in the country - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Operation Raise the Colours, an online "patriotism campaign", emerged last summer and encouraged people to hang patriotic flags across England. Its co-founders are named in Birmingham city council's documents submitted to the High Court.
Birmingham city council said it sought an injunction following claims that staff had been harassed while removing unauthorised flags.
In the court documents, the council stated that a contractor had put the cost at approximately £132 per flag, warning it would require "police support" for the job and the work had to be done in "hours of darkness" given the "safety concerns".
"While police support was provided as a short-term measure, this approach is not cost-effective or sustainable in the long term," the council wrote.
If Birmingham council is granted an injunction, anyone who puts up flags near roads without its permission would face as long as two years in prison or an unlimited fine.
A spokesman for the authority told The Telegraph that the injunction was "not about stopping people flying flags", but rather about "authorised attachments" on public property.
They added that the council was not seeking to prevent people from "flying flags on their property".
Councillor Rajbir Singh, Reform UK's shadow cabinet member for finance in Birmingham, said: "At a time when Birmingham is cutting services and trying to repair its finances, committing millions of pounds to a citywide flag-removal operation is an extraordinary choice of priority.
"Our national flag is not a problem to be solved. The Union Flag and St George's Cross are symbols of our country, and people should be able to display them with pride."
In August last year, Birmingham council ordered the removal of flags from lamp posts, claiming that they put the lives of pedestrians and motorists "at risk".
However, opponents of the move pointed to the number of Palestinian flags flown across the city amid the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
Councillor Jane Baston, cabinet member for equalities, communities and social justice, said: "The council is taking a lawful, proportionate and evidence-led approach to unauthorised attachments on the highway. This includes pursuing injunctive action based on the evidence gathered to date.
"Our priority is to protect public safety, staff and contractor welfare, community cohesion and the responsible use of public funds.
"We ask residents and community groups to support this approach and to ensure any displays are placed only where permission exists."
Last week, the council was criticised for setting out plans to become England's first 20mph city by lowering the speed limits on the majority of its roads.
