Richard ParrAs a true blue local authority you do not normally see much red at Breckland Council.But there were doubtless plenty of rosy faces at the council HQ yesterday after officials admitted to flying the corporate logo without permission - just weeks after telling a village school it needed consent for a flag designed by children.Richard Parr

As a true blue local authority you do not normally see much red at Breckland Council.

But there were doubtless plenty of rosy faces at the council HQ yesterday after officials admitted to flying the corporate logo without permission - just weeks after telling a village school it needed consent for a flag designed by children.

As reported in the EDP, Beetley Primary school, near Dereham, had been working on a long-running project to create a new school flag and proudly fly it from a bright new flagpole outside its school grounds.

At the time Breckland said it would need advertisement consent because it was deemed to be advertising the school.

Now Louise Bunning, the parent-governor behind the flag project, has accused the council of 'double standards' after the authority admitted that it has flown the authority's flag featuring its corporate logo without permission.

In a statement a Breckland spokesman said: 'We have in the past inadvertently flown Breckland Council flags featuring the corporate logo without the permission but we feel that common sense should prevail on this issue in both our case and the recent case of Beetley school.

'For the benefit of the doubt we will, however, retrospectively seek permission.'

Mrs Bunning said: 'For our part, we have followed the procedure and will be applying for the required advertisement consent so that we can fly our flag. We are proud of our school and all we have ever wanted is to be able to say so publicly by flying our own flag.'

She added: 'It is a little frustrating that double standards appear to be operating here but I feel that we are following the procedure that we have been told to follow and Breckland will have to do what it feels it needs to do.'

Mrs Bunning also revealed that the cost of the advertisement permission could be about �95 and said if someone could donate the money it would save a fund-raising event having to be organised.

Breckland has been flying flags, the union flag and its own logo flag since flagpoles were put outside its headquarters when they were newly completed on the Walpole Loke site, on the edge of the town, several years ago. The Breckland flag was not flying from the flagpole yesterday but the Union flag was.