FOI Request - Costs and Incidents Relating to Removal of Unauthorised Flags

Request 101003846013

For the period from 1 July 2025 to the latest date for which records are held at the time of your search (please state the end date used), please provide:

1. The total recorded spend incurred by the Council in removing unauthorised flags from public land or the highway, broken down (if held) by: staff time/recharge rates, contractor costs, vehicles/materials, disposal, overtime.

2. The number of incidents/jobs where unauthorised flags were removed, with date and ward or postcode sector for each (no exact addresses required).

3. The job/incident category codes and cost centre/recharge codes used for these removals (e.g. fly-posting/illegal signage/unauthorised banner).

4. The current schedule of rates (or equivalent) used by the Council/its contractor for removal of illegal signage/flags.

5. Any policy/guidance/SOP in force during the period for identifying and removing unauthorised flags, including the legal basis (e.g. Highways Act 1980 s132 / Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regs 2007).

If you do not hold a discrete “flag” category, please extract cases recorded under flyposting/illegal signage/unauthorised banners where the free-text notes contain “flag”, “Union Jack”, “St George’s Cross”, “England flag” (or combinations thereof) for the period.

Response 22-09-2025

1. None
2. No records of any work relating to this.
3. Not applicable
4. Not applicable
5. We are not aware of any policy, etc that would be used to identify or remove such flags.  However, Section 100 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 indicates that such a thing could be deemed an offence.