Dear Mr. Gash,

Freedom of Information Request 65959

I refer to your request made under the Data Protection Act 1998 in which you requested information regarding the flying of the rainbow flag, in support of gay and lesbian rights, from Liverpool Town Hall and Merseyside Police Headquarters.

The Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 2007 control the display of advertisements including flag advertisements. The Regulations are complex particularly in relation to flags adverts. There are certain classes of advertisements which are explicitly not advertisements under the Regulations including Class H in relation to the display of National, County or Saints flags.

There are also classes of advertisement which benefit from deemed consent Class 7 Flag Advertisements covers developments which are permitted from the roof of premises. In relation to your comments the flying of a flag by Liverpool City Council (Point 1) and Merseyside Police (Point 4) fall within Class 1 Functional advertisements of government departments and their agencies, local authorities, public transport undertakers, statutory undertakers and Transport London as benefiting from deemed consent.

In this context the City Council have not (Points 2,3) undertaken any prosecutions for flag advertisements during the last 5 years.

I trust this information satisfies your enquiry.

Yours sincerely

W Twigge (pp)

Information Manager

Liverpool City Council

Wendy Twigge Information Manager Legal Services

Municipal Buildings, Dale Street, Liverpool, L2 2DH

tel: 0151 225 3132 fax: 0151 225 2392 email: [email address]