Penrith Town Council has been forced to submit a planning application to Westmorland and Furness Council after last year installing flags on town centre lampposts without the required planning consent, risking wasting thousands of pounds of public money in the process.
In 2024, the town council erected nine promotional flags along Middlegate, attaching them to streetlights owned by Westmorland and Furness Council. The flags carried messages such as “Eat & Drink”, “Discover”, “Shop Local”, “Welcome”, and “History & Heritage”, alongside a Penrith logo produced as part of a town council branding initiative.
More than £5,000 of public money was spent on the design, production, and installation of the flags — yet no planning or advertisement consent had been obtained, even though the flags were installed in the town’s conservation area.
The flags were removed in September, with the town council claiming at the time they were only seasonal. A town council spokesperson said:
“The flags are to be put up before Easter and removed September/October prior to the installation of Christmas lights. This is to provide a welcoming and colourful display for visitors and residents during the tourist season and to ensure that they are not damaged by poor winter weather.”
Westmorland and Furness Council later confirmed that the flags had been installed without any planning or advertisement consent and warned that the town council must submit a formal planning application before reinstalling them.
The authority pointed to its Highways and Local Lighting Policy, Section 4.9, which explicitly states that no attachments shall be made to lighting columns without prior written approval.
The council also operates a service procedure governing attachments to lighting columns. This sets out the approval process and lists acceptable items such as Christmas lights, traffic signs, banners, and flower baskets. It also states that unapproved attachments may be removed and stored at a highways depot for collection.
Under the Highways Act 1980, affixing items to the highway without the consent of the highway authority is an offence.
Despite the lack of planning consent in 2024, Penrith Town Council went ahead with the installation of the flags in the Penrith conservation area, an area where the town council has in the past objected to planning applications and work carried out by local businesses as if felt it was no appropriate in the towns conservation area.
Now, months after the flags were taken down, the council has been forced to submit a planning application costing a further £275 to seek approval to reinstall the nine flags along Middlegate. As part of thee application the town council claims it has consulted local businesses along middlegate about the plans with a letter sent by Penrith BiD to traders that has received no responses.
The planning application can be viewed and commented on at https://planningregister.westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk/Planning/Display/2025/2277/ADV
Then select "Add to Home Screen"
