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END FLAG FIASCO – TYLER
Liberal Democrat Peer, Lord (Paul) Tyler, today (Friday) called on Planning Minister, Yvette Cooper to honour the pledges and position of her predecessor, Keith Hill, to keep St Piran’s flag flying across the Cornwall.
During his time as MP for North Cornwall, Paul Tyler led a successful campaign, backed by the local media, to gain reassurances from the Planning Minister that rules which prevent the St Piran’s flag flying without specific permission could be ignored by local Councils. The Minister further undertook to have the rules revised when the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992 came under review. While the review has taken place this year, the rules have not been scrapped.
Commenting. Lord Tyler said:
“It was some eighteen months ago I branded these regulations a ‘mind-boggling absurdity’. It is beyond belief that the Government could undergo a thoroughgoing review of the rules on flag flying and still come up with an answer which is so patently outrageous.
“It is a reprehensible betrayal of the former Minister’s commitment to fairness that exemptions are still made for St David of Wales, St Andrew of Scotland and St George of England – and for every other national flag in the alphabet, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – but not for St Piran of Cornwall.
“Ministers seem to expect the Cornish people to endure this discrimination, first dreamt up by the long-since departed Conservative Government. We will not accept it.
“The present Government must end this fiasco once and for all by amending rules which are as unfair as they are irrational.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Lord Tyler has written to the Minister today. His letter follows.
Yvette Cooper MP
Minister of State (Housing & Planning)
Department for Communities & Local Government
26 Whitehall
London SW1A 2WH
28 July 2006
I understand that your review of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992 suggests that the Cornish national flag – the cross of St Piran – should not be treated as a national flag, and a flag pole flying it would therefore require explicit planning consent.
I hope that your civil servants in the Department have briefed you that this requirement would be a direct betrayal of the assurances given to me by your Ministerial predecessor, Keith Hill. During correspondence with me in November and December 2004 he assured me that “It is therefore entirely a matter for the relevant local planning authority to determine whether St Piran’s flag should be permitted and whether they consider it is necessary to take enforcement action” (ODPM letter dated 20th December 2004).
In any case, as I am sure you will agree, there is no rational case for this persecution of the long established symbol of Cornwall: it is patently absurd that exemptions are not only made for St David of Wales, St Andrew of Scotland and St George of England but for every other national flag in the alphabet – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. You cannot expect people here in Cornwall to accept this discrimination, and it is totally unreasonable to impose the responsibility on our local authorities to enforce it.
I appreciate that these regulations were prepared and introduced by the previous Conservative Government, who must have been blind to their significance, but their continuation without Keith Hill’s explicit assurance in relation to the Cornish flag would be as ridiculous as it would be insulting. Two wrongs do not make a right!
I look forward to hearing from you.
PAUL TYLER |
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Tuesday, 02 December 2008
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