FOI request (FOIR-750920655)

St George's flags

Requested Mon 22 September 2025
Responded Thu 16 October 2025

1. Can you tell me the council's position on the emergence of St George's flags on lamp-posts, roundabouts and elsewhere via non-official origins in the past few months?

2. By conducting a keywords search of the authority's email server, please tell me how many emails appear, separately, for each of the months of May, June, July and August 2025 when searching for the term 'English flag' or 'George's flag''.

3. By conducting a similar search for any occurrence of the terms 'English flag' or 'George's flag' (use the search term 'English flag' or 'St George's flag') please can you provide for me an output of the contents of email exchanges on your server, redacted to ensure no personal information is included, starting with the most recent and going back as far as you can within the time and cost limits specified in the FOI Act, and not extending before 1st July 2025.

If you do not have a system capable of automatically redacting emails outputs, I believe this should be possible by conducting a search for emails on your server going back as far as 1st July, outputting all as a PDF and redacting the PDF(s) as far back as you can, then omitting all the pages which remain unredacted from your response.

If possible within the cost limits of the act after fulfilling the above questions, can you please also provide the contents of any minutes or discussions where the emergence of these flags on streets and roundabouts was discussed?

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Response

1. Hastings Borough Council issued two statements on this, first on Friday 29th August, and second on 12th September:

Hastings Borough Council is aware that St George's flags have been placed in various locations across the town, including being painted on road surfaces. The responsibility for highways in Hastings lies with East Sussex County Council, and we refer you to their statement on this matter. If any flag is placed on Hastings Borough Council's property, this may be removed. This will be assessed and acted upon on a case-by-case basis. If council property is defaced this will be classed as graffiti and removed accordingly. We welcome and support people celebrating their country's heritage in a respectful way that does not cause criminal damage to our town. As a council, we proudly fly the national flag from our council buildings on various dates throughout the year. We encourage everyone who wishes to display a flag to do so on their own property or in agreed places.

Statement from Cllr Glenn Haffenden, leader of Hastings Borough Council: "We are aware that flags have appeared on the seafront this morning. While we support people celebrating their country's heritage in a respectful way that does not cause criminal damage to our town, it is not appropriate for flags to be put on public property. "The lampposts are the responsibility of East Sussex County Council highways and we have requested that they are removed as a matter of urgency. If flags are on Hastings Borough Council land or property, they will be removed. "We encourage anyone who wants to display a flag to do so from their own property or in agreed places."

2. 3

3. Please see the attached document.

Attachments

• FOIR-750920655_FOIR-750920655_1-FOI750920655_Redacted.pdf