Pride: Hedon Town Council flagpole ban prompts poster campaign

The posters were printed by a local Labour councillor who proposed the flying of the Pride flag

A town councillor has distributed Pride posters after the authority he is a member of refused to fly the rainbow colours from its town hall flagpole.

Hedon Town councillor Steve Gallant distributed the displays at the end of Pride month, which runs through June.

Mr Gallant said the council had agreed to fly the Ukrainian flag last year, following the Russian invasion.

A town council spokesperson said it wanted to keep the flagpole for "traditional civic occasions".

Mr Gallant said there were no formal rules on which designs could be flown from the flagpole.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "Everyone agreed to fly the Ukrainian flag 18 months ago, so when I put forward the motion for the Pride flag, I thought it would be uncontentious."

The Labour representative on the East Yorkshire authority said he was "somewhat surprised" when it was refused.

"In order to show that the town doesn't have a problem with LGBT people I got some posters printed off and asked businesses to put them up.

"I got an almost unanimously positive reaction," he said.

Mr Gallant, who is a member of the LGBTQ community, said he didn't understand why people had objected to the motion, as the councillors who voted against it told him they weren't anti-gay.

"We can go back to decisions and review them, so I'm sure we'll be talking about this again in the future," he said.

Hedon Town Council said the town hall flagpole was "for traditional civic occasions"

The town council's spokesperson said: "After due consideration, Hedon Town Council, conscious of the local heritage, decided to preserve the use of the flagpole for traditional civic occasions to remain in keeping with the history of Hedon.

"Councillors were wholly supportive of the Pride movement and the awareness campaign for the LGBTQIA+ community, not only Hedon's diverse population but to diversity in the population everywhere.

"The Pride campaign is a month long. And this is still not enough time to debate the complex issues and challenges pertinent to the LGBTQIA+ community."