Damage bills mount from Kent’s lamppost flags
FOIs reveal the cost of Kent’s lamppost flag policy and what happens when risks go unchecked
Good morning and welcome to your Monday Kent Current briefing. We hope your weekend was calmer than last week was for residents in Tunbridge Wells, where running water became an aspirational lifestyle. The county has had its fair share of surreal weeks lately, and this one doesn’t look set to break the pattern.
Our main story today looks at Kent’s lamppost flags, which are still flying, still unauthorised, and now quietly generating repair bills through a policy that depends on spotting risks the council isn’t checking for.
You’ll also find a fascinating deep dive into waste crime near Iwade, the peculiar science of defining a town, and the latest news from councils across the county.
Let’s dive in.
Catch up
If you missed any of our reporting over the past week, here’s your chance to catch up.
The biggest story in Kent last week was that one of our biggest towns spent the best part of a week without a water supply, raising significant questions for South East Water. While supplies are now back on, residents are still being told that it isn't safe to drink or bathe in without being boiled first.
Ed Jennings
For our big weekend interview, we sat down with Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP, Kevin MᶜKenna, who talks in-depth about how he became an MP, the hidden population in his constituency, living with HIV, and lots more.
Steven Keevil
Damage bills mount from Kent’s lamppost flags
Kent County Council’s decision to leave thousands of unauthorised flags attached to lampposts across the county is beginning to have measurable consequences. Two FOI responses reveal that the authority has already spent more than £4,000 dealing with damage linked to the flags, despite saying it would intervene only when they posed a safety risk.
The headline numbers are modest. What they reveal is a policy that has avoided enforcement and inspection, and is now generating reactive costs while leaving the council exposed to risks it has chosen not to assess.
What the FOIs show
The first FOI shows that KCC did not answer a question about whether it had carried out any structural or safety assessment of the flags attached to its lampposts. The council provided no evidence that any checks had taken place and offered no assessment against recognised load standards. It also could not provide any thresholds that would require removal, and confirmed it has no winter inspection plan, even though the flags remain in place as winter weather approaches.
Despite the absence of oversight, the council acknowledged that it may be legally liable if something goes wrong. It confirmed that its public liability insurance would likely cover incidents in which an unauthorised flag contributed to an accident by blocking a light or sign, or in which the added strain played a part in a structural failure. Liability could fall on the council if negligence were established. That risk increases when an authority knows about illegal attachments but decides not to examine them.
The second FOI shows how this stance is already producing costs. Since the summer, KCC has spent £4,133,72 repairing or responding to damage caused by or related to the flags. More than £3,400 pounds of that was recorded in September alone. Removal costs totalling £600 were also recorded across several months, even though the council says it does not generally remove flags unless they are unsafe.
The FOI response did not include details on what was damaged or where, which is normal for such disclosures.
Kent Current asked KCC to explain the nature of the incidents and whether any of the costs would be covered by insurance. No response was received.
A policy that cannot function
KCC’s position is that flags will remain unless they pose a safety risk. The FOIs show that the council has no system for determining whether any risk exists. It has supplied no evidence of checks, no assessments and no criteria that would trigger intervention.
This leaves a policy that cannot function. The council says it will act if danger emerges, but has no mechanism for identifying danger in the first place. The result is a safety threshold that exists only on paper and can be recognised only after something has gone wrong. The damage recorded in the second FOI is already an example of that.
How enforcement blurred into inaction
Kent Police’s public position has not constrained councils, but it has influenced the political environment. The force has said it views the spontaneous flying of national flags as lawful unless there is an urgent safety concern, even when flags are fixed to highway structures without permission. That has not removed KCC’s powers, but it has provided a convenient shield for a council already reluctant to intervene.
The lack of intervention has pushed responsibility downward. Parishes in Harrietsham, Queenborough and Downswood all learned this autumn that flags would have to be removed before Christmas lights could be installed. These were not disputes created by enforcement. They were the product of KCC passing responsibility to smaller councils with limited resources and little ability to manage the risks that KCC itself has chosen not to assess.
Why this matters
The amounts spent so far will not affect the county’s finances. The issue is what they signal. The FOIs describe an approach that avoids enforcement and inspection, while leaving the authority responsible for thousands of unauthorised attachments it has never evaluated. The damage recorded in the second FOI shows that the consequences of this approach are no longer theoretical.
KCC has adopted a policy that relies on identifying safety risks it has chosen not to examine. The FOIs show how quickly that gap becomes visible in practice. The flags remain, but so does the question of how long the council can persist with a system that recognises danger only after it has already occurred.
Three big stories
1️⃣ The water crisis in Tunbridge Wells has dominated much of the discourse around Kent in the past week. The I have argued that the situation is proof that Britain is 'completely broken' and that it should act as a wake-up call. It's not entirely hard to disagree at this point.
2️⃣ Channel 4 has been investigating organised waste crime, looking in particular at an illegal waste site near Iwade in Swale, where residents describe 'mass intimidation' and a lack of action on the issue.
3️⃣ Nerdy (in the best possible way) YouTuber Chris Spargo has been investigating the lines between villages, towns, and cities, using Fordwich in Kent as a starting point, given it's Britain's smallest town.
In brief
➡️ Three expelled Reform councillors - Cllrs Paul Thomas, Brian Black, and Oliver Bradshaw - on Kent County Council have formed a new Independent Group, separate to the recently created Independent Reformers group at KCC.
🚰 The BBC has been asking residents of Tunbridge Wells just how they survived a week without running water.
🚑 South East Coast Ambulance Trust has received criticism from Medway councillors after secret filming for a Channel 4 documentary found failings within the service.
🏥 East Kent Hospitals Trust have revealed plans for a £1.8m upgrade of the maternity unit at QEQM Hospital in Margate.
🏴 Searchlight have done a deep dive into the current circumstances of Faversham anti-immigrant activist Harry Hilden and his increasingly strong associations with the far-right Britain First. His latest protest at Folkestone's Napier Barracks drew around 35 supporters, who were outnumbered three to one by a 'cake not hate' bake sale.
📹 30 CCTV cameras covering Ashford haven't worked for months, with Ashford Borough Council describing the claims as 'scaremongering' while refusing to deny them.
🚌 Kent County Council will receive over £78m in the next three years to improve bus services across the county.
⚫ John Stanley, the MP for Tonbridge and Malling between 1974 and 2015, has passed away.
🎛️ Lovebox Festival will relocate from London to Dreamland in Margate next year, with Scissor Sisters, Friendly Fires, and Rudimental leading the lineup.
🎄 It's the time of year when stories of awful winter wonderland attractions proliferate, so it was exciting to see this new twist on them with a miserable-looking Christmas drone show.
Council matters
Meetings this week:
- Canterbury: Cabinet gathers tonight (Monday) to debate the 'Wealden Condition,' a plan to try to stall housebuilding in the borough due to a lack of adequate sewage facilities.
- Dartford: General Assembly of the Council meets tonight (Monday) to debate removing abandoned vehicles and issuing an Article 4 Direction against new HMOs.
- Sevenoaks: Cabinet meets tomorrow night (Tuesday) to discuss the emerging budget and a load of rubbish.
- Thanet: Overview & Scrutiny Panel will debate an interesting scheme to bring empty shops back into use by using a rental auction scheme to open up properties to new tenants.
- Folkestone & Hythe: Cabinet gets together on Wednesday, when they will discuss progress on the Otterpool Park development.
- Swale: Council will meet on Wednesday to debate becoming a District of Sanctuary and the next steps of the borough's Local Plan.
- Ashford: Cabinet meets on Thursday to discuss the budget for the coming year and lots of items on social housing.
- Thanet: Council will debate a motion on Thursday about some of the Pride in Place funding awarded to the district going to Broadstairs, and then a motion on motions.
Events this week
🎤 Fri 12 Dec - Mark Thomas // Headline show from political comedian famous for a mix of standup, theatre, and journalism. Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury. Tickets £7.
Footnotes
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