The bunting ban: Flags that fluttered over village parties for a century snagged in health and safety red tape

For more than a century, the inhabitants of Hatfield Broad Oak have marked their special occasions with strings of bunting.

In recent decades, the colourful flags have become an integral part of the annual village festival.

But from this year, they will flutter no more.

The bunting has become tangled up with health and safety red tape, and has become too costly - and complicated - for festival organisers to erect.

The annual event in the Essex village, which includes a craft fair, a dance and a dog show and ends today with a ten kilometre run, raises about £10,000 a year for local groups and charities.

Parish councillor Leigh Trevitt, 40, who

has lived in Hatfield Broad Oak for 15 years, said the whole village is furious that it could no longer be marked with bunting.

Mr Trevitt, director of a paper company, said an unknown person had complained about the flags to authorities.

June 9 1907: Bunting hangs harmlessly above villagers in Hatfield Broad Oak

When organisers asked permission from Essex County Council’s highways department to put up the bunting this year, they were handed six A4 sheets of paper with conditions.

The string would have to be attached to fixed points on buildings using stainless steel bolts, which would need rigorous testing.

Mr Trevitt said: ‘The conditions are impractical and impossible. Many of the houses are listed so we couldn’t get planning permission to put stainless steel bolts on them.

‘And we could not afford professional installation. I was in the pub and a lot of people were saying we should go ahead anyway and let Highways take us all to court but a lot of the people who organise the festival are elderly and are scared of the bullies.’

The potential hazards of bunting weren't considered in wartime Hatfield Broad Oak, 1943

He said the bunting had been used in the festival for many years without mishap. A photograph from 1907 shows flags hanging between two buildings.

‘Our village is a little piece of old England and if we are not careful we will lose all our rights,’ he added. Mr Trevitt said he was told that bunting comes under the same category as Christmas lights and that there had been two recent incidents where lights fell down.

An Essex Highways spokesman said: ‘While we sympathise with the organisers of community events these guidelines have been set down after real events where people have been injured.’