Tour de France Cambridge knitted bunting 'safe' for lampposts

Hundreds of knitters took out their needles to help create the bunting to decorate Cambridge

Cambridge lampposts are sturdy enough not to buckle under the weight of bunting knitted for the Tour de France, the county council has said.

Its comment came after similar bunting was removed from Masham in North Yorkshire amid concerns its weight when wet might bend posts.

Rad Wagon, who organised the 2,000 miniature knitted jerseys, said they had been "carefully weighed".

The council said it had "no fears" it might get heavy and "pull things over".

Knitters were asked to contribute to campaigns to decorate the routes of both the Yorkshire stage of the race on 5 and 6 July, and the Cambridge stage on 7 July by knitting tiny jerseys in the Tour de France colours.

A council said bunting in Masham might bend the street lights when it became wet and heavy

However, last week bunting was removed from Masham by North Yorkshire County Council over safety concerns.

Bunting weigh-in

A spokesperson said: "We noticed that the lighting columns were leaning and in the interest of safety we asked for it to be taken down."

The bunting was subsequently hung elsewhere in the town.

Mr Wagon said he had taken precautions to ensure the miniature jerseys knitted to decorate the streets of Cambridge would not cause any damage.

The knitted jerseys have been sewn together into bunting to decorate the route of the race in July

"We have a lot of knitting friends who are also engineers at the university and we have carefully weighed the jerseys when both dry and soaking wet.

"We are also using short lengths of twine which means there will not be too many jerseys on each individual line of bunting," he said.

All the information had been passed to the contractors employed by the council to hang the bunting and other decorations, Mr Wagon added.

Asked whether Cambridgeshire's council might experience similar issues to those in Yorkshire, a spokesman said: "We have no such concerns.

"All street furniture being used in Cambridge will have been checked appropriately.

"We have no such fears about it getting wet and pulling anything over."

The bunting is being hung around the city this week.