Will Haylett is furious after being handed a bill for nearly £3,000 for putting up Union and St George’s flags across his ‘down and depressed’ community, sparking a row with the council
A businessman is raging after being left with a bill of almost £3,000 after putting up Union and St George’s flags.
Will Haylett, 43, insists he was simply trying to “lift people’s spirits” when he used his company cherry picker to hoist dozens of flags onto lampposts around Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
But instead, he received an invoice demanding £2,785.50 after North Yorkshire Council removed the flags and later issued a charge for their recovery. The council claimed it received some complaints about the flags.
Ensure our latest headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as your Preferred Source in your Google search settings.
In a letter sent to Will’s firm Squeeky Clean, North Yorkshire Council said it had taken down 64 flags “believed to be your (Will’s) property”. The authority added that if he wanted the flags returned, it would cost £36.27 per flag plus VAT contributing to the overall £2,785.50 bill. Will said he was shocked by the amount and frustrated by the council’s stance.
“I was disgusted with the council,” he said. “To solve the problem, I said I’d make a donation to a veterans charity instead and they accepted that.”
Explaining why he decided to install the flags in the first place, he said the idea came from years of observing locals being “down and depressed”. He said: “I’ve lived in Scarborough all of my life. For years, I’ve been driving around and seeing local people down and depressed. I thought, what’s going on?
“I have a cherry picker, so I thought I could help lift people’s spirits by putting up a few flags here and there. It was to bring us all together and put smiles on people’s faces.”
Will, who has run his exterior cleaning and high-level maintenance business for 11 years, said he had engaged in “back and forth” discussions with the council before the invoice was issued. He claimed officials told him to stop attaching items to lampposts, describing them as ‘our’ lampposts, a position he questioned.
He said: “The council wanted me to stop putting things on ‘our’ lampposts. I thought, what’s the problem? It all came from one or two lefties.”
North Yorkshire Council said that attaching flags to lampposts without permission is an offence and can present a safety risk. The Mirror has contacted the council for comment.
