Footage has emerged of an unexpected stop on Santa’s busy Christmas delivery round.
The 20-second video shows a notional Father Christmas – draped in a Union Jack over his customary red jacket and trousers – attaching flags to a metal bike stand on the County Hall grounds at Exeter’s Topsham Road.
The building is the home of Devon County Council, which has removed some flags from lampposts in the city, and worked to discourage others from attaching more due to the dangers involved.
It also wants to recoup the costs it has incurred from taking the flags down from those that have been responsible for putting the flags up.
The video suggests the person dressed as Santa also put the other flags up in the clip, which are placed above the main public entrance to County Hall. However, the footage does not show him putting them there, so it isn’t entirely clear who did so.
The images come from a video shot on Christmas Eve, the long shadows potentially suggesting it was towards the end of the day once most, if not all, Devon County Council staff would have left the building ahead of the Christmas break.
The flags have become a lightning rod debating point, with supporters suggesting they simply espouse patriotic pride, but detractors claiming their prevalence comes at a time when the topic of immigration is high up the political agenda.
Last month, the county council removed a host of flags on Exeter’s Bridge Road, only for them to be almost instantly reinstated by an individual that has not been publicly identified.
While the council did interview an individual, it was ascertained that person did not have any direct involvement in putting the flags back up that had been removed.
A spokesperson for the council said at the time: “We have spoken directly with an individual linked to the putting up of flags on Bridge Road.
“We will not repeat that conversation, but we are clear in saying that we will seek to recoup the cost of removing unauthorised flags from streetlights from those we identify as being responsible.”
Other areas in the Exeter area have also seen a flurry of flags, including Cranbrook, where many lampposts have been festooned with the St George Cross flag.
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