Patriotic football fans have branded council bosses ‘killjoys’ after they pulled down England flags.

A group of teenagers and young people spent days putting up more than 30 flags bearing the cross of St George on lamp posts in Pankhurst Avenue, Brighton, ahead of the World Cup.

The Argus featured the flags in Thursday’s paper and told how the community was delighted with the decorations.

But shortly after 10am yesterday residents were stunned to see council workers in cherry pickers taking the flags down.

Brighton and Hove City Council said it removed the flags to send out a message about the dangers involved in climbing lamp posts.

A spokeswoman said: “People might think this is ‘health and safety gone mad’ but the fact is it’s very dangerous to climb up 25ft lamp posts to hang things from them.”

Dozens of people gathered in the street to protest and The Argus was inundated with calls criticising the council.

Alex Fry, 18, who was one of the teenagers who put the flags up, said: “This is a joke. We will be putting them straight back up.

“We used a ladder to do it. It was safe.”

The group followed the cherry picker as it removed the flags and called out: “You can bring them down, but they’ll go back up.”

At 11.15am yesterday the men driving the cherry pickers said they had been contacted by their office and told not to take any more flags down.

Ten minutes after the cherry pickers left the first flag was put back up.

The council insisted it did not back-track on its original decision.

A spokeswoman said: “We took the bunting down to send out a clear message about the danger and hopefully to persuade residents not to do this.

“If anyone really wants to hang bunting from lamp posts – and it’s appropriate – they should get in touch and we’ll help them do this safely.”

Have you got a World Cup story? Call Naomi Loomes on 01273 544547.