City of York Council’s planning committee will consider an application to display “community and non-commercial flags from the Mansion House flag pole” at a meeting at 4.30pm on Thursday, August 15.
The application – submitted by the council – is recommended for approval.
Community flags include York Pride, Transgender Awareness, and the UNESCO City of Media Arts. The council, however, added that the application isn’t limited to such flags.
All requests to fly flags have to be agreed by the political group leaders and the Lord Mayor – whose ceremonial home is the Mansion House.
The report submitted with the application added: “As a general rule all flags are flown either on the day they support or commemorate, or for no more than one week.”
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Some objections were noted in the report.
“Approval will allow York Council to lawfully indulge in its biased flying of ‘virtue signalling’ flags which it has hitherto being doing in breach of planning regulations,” said one objector.
“It is not for certain officers or the ruling group to decide arbitrarily what flags may or may not be flown.
“I object to any ‘variety’ of vanity flags being allowed to fly subject only to political choices to be made in behind closed doors.”
Another said that the only flags flying should be the Union flag, York flag, Royal Standard, national flags and Military flags.
The council report said: “The flags proposed by this application would not cause harm to visual amenity or the character of the conservation area, nor would they impact adversely on public safety.”
