Bankrupt Birmingham City Council is facing scrutiny after confirming that removing British flags installed on lamp posts across the city is expected to cost £2.6 million.
Court papers filed by the council put the cost of removal at roughly £132 per flag.
The flags, mostly Union Flags and St George’s Crosses, were put up as part of a grassroots initiative known as Operation Raise the Colours, which began last summer and encouraged people around England to display patriotic flags in public places.
Around 20,000 flags are believed to have gone up on lamp posts across Birmingham.
Court papers filed by the council show the cost to remove the flags would be roughly £132 per flag. The council says this figure reflects the practical difficulties of the work, which it says has needed police support because staff carrying out removals have faced harassment, and which it says must be done during darkness because of safety concerns for contractors. The council has said that relying on police assistance in this way is not something it can sustain in the long term.
Birmingham City Council last month began legal proceedings seeking a High Court injunction to prevent flags being attached to street furniture such as lamp posts without authorisation. If granted, the order would mean people who put up unauthorised flags near roads could face up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine. Council officials have stressed that the injunction is aimed at unauthorised attachments to public infrastructure, not at people flying flags on their own property.
The council, run by a coalition of the Liberal Democrats, Greens and independents, has been under significant financial pressure since it issued a section 114 notice in September 2023, effectively declaring itself unable to balance its budget. It currently carries more than £3.5 billion in debt, the highest of any local authority in the country, and has raised council tax by 4.99 per cent for the coming year, the maximum increase allowed without triggering a local referendum.
Critics of the flag-removal plan have questioned whether it represents a sensible use of public money given the council’s financial position. Councillor Rajbir Singh, Reform UK’s shadow cabinet member for finance on the council, said that committing millions of pounds to removing flags while the council is cutting services elsewhere was, in his view, an unusual set of priorities, and argued that the Union Flag and St George’s Cross should not be treated as symbols requiring removal.
Councillor Jane Baston, the council’s cabinet member for equalities, communities and social justice, has defended the approach, describing it as lawful, proportionate and based on evidence gathered around public safety, staff and contractor welfare, community cohesion and the responsible use of public funds. She has asked residents and community groups to display flags only where permission has been granted.
A council spokesperson said that the legal action was not intended to stop people flying flags generally, but was specifically about unauthorised attachments to public property.
The move follows an earlier decision by the council in August last year to order the removal of flags from lamp posts, on the grounds that they posed a risk to pedestrians and motorists. Some opponents of that decision have pointed to the presence of Palestinian flags elsewhere in the city, which they say has not attracted the same enforcement response.
The flag removal costs come against a backdrop of wider financial difficulties for the council. Birmingham has paid out an estimated £1.35 billion in equal pay claims following a landmark 2012 case, spent £565 million on recruitment, agency and interim staff since 2020, and put £144 million into an Oracle IT system upgrade originally forecast to cost £20 million. It also spent £560 million on housing for athletes at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and fined itself £472,000 after its own vehicles repeatedly breached the city’s clean air zone.
The council’s approach to the flags row comes shortly after it was separately criticised for proposing to make Birmingham England’s first 20mph city, by reducing speed limits across most of its road network.
Birmingham City Council have been asked for comment.
Main Image: For illustration purposes.