A town’s Remembrance Day poppy display has been cancelled after the council stopped decoration on posts that have road signs on them.
The remembrance organisers in Hoyland, South Yorkshire, said its annual display of more than 350 wooden poppies across town, each representing a soldier on the Hoyland War Memorial, cannot go ahead due to new rules.
Barnsley Council updated its guidelines due to what it called ‘an increase in unlicensed attachments’ since the recent influx of flag flying.
The Hoyland Remembrance and Parade Group (HRPG) said the new policy would not leave enough posts to use for the poppy display.
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HRPG chairman Robert Hill said: ‘I am genuinely disheartened that we will not be putting up the wooden poppies on lampposts and road signage posts lining the parade route.’
He explained that new rules made the display too difficult, particularly not being able to put poppies up on posts with road signs.
This would leave the town centre ‘looking bare with only the sporadic placing of poppies’, according to HRPG.
Robert added: ‘We cannot put one up with a name and not another, as we believe this would be disrespectful.’
Other rules set by the council also caused problems, such as not being allowed to lean ladders against the posts and only installing them above head height.
HRPG said: ‘We hope the public understands the position we have found ourselves in this year and ask that you continue to support us by attending this year’s parade.
‘We will look at the issue over the next 12 months, engage with the council to determine if anything can change and update those that follow and support the work we do as things progress.’
The cancellation stoked fury in the community and the council responded that the claim spread online that it stopped the poppy display ‘isn’t true’.
Councillor Sir Steve Houghton, leader of Barnsley Council, said: ‘We appreciate Hoyland Remembrance and Parade Group’s continued commitment to honouring our fallen heroes and recognise the significance of this annual event.’
The council emphasised that attaching items to lampposts requires a licence. It said this rule is there ‘to protect everyone’s safety’.
HRPG said in a more recent statement that it was ‘concerned to see that there are claims the Council has stopped us putting the poppies up’.
It referred to the rules which led them to cancel the display and thanked the council for its support and work maintaining the town’s war memorial.
Previously Barnsley Council said it would take down any flags which present a safety risk by being put up in inappropriate locations.
Flags were reportedly taken down in Hoyland last month. It was not confirmed whether the local authority was responsible.
Sir Steve said: ‘Regardless of how much we might love our flags, criminal damage and graffiti are not acceptable in any circumstances.’
Decisions around flying Union and St George’s flags have become a hot topic since campaigns to display the flag took off in mid-July.
A London council took down nearly 80 flags over two days in August. Tower Hamlets, in East London, denounced the flag flying campaign as being led ‘by far-right extremists’.
It claimed that the summer of anti-immigration protests sparked a growing trend of ‘far-right agitators’ which aimed to ‘import division’ into the borough from elsewhere.
Labour MP Dr Jeevun Sandher also criticised the campaign and said it did not feel like a ‘celebration of community spirit’.
Dr Sandher wrote to Reform-run Leicestershire County Council to argue the flags are ‘tatty’ and ‘risk detaching and falling into the road’.
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