Boris Johnson's Transport for London bureaucrats have gone bonkers over Islington's hanging flower baskets and ordered that some of them must come down – for health and safety reasons.
In an extraordinary bit of red tape, Transport for London bosses have told Islington Council that the baskets pose a risk to pedestrians, buses and cars. The Council has had to check each lamp-post to see if it can take the "strain".
Council staff have now taken down ten of the offending baskets along Upper Street and Holloway Road.
Islington's Liberal Democrat council has put up a record number of flower baskets this year – over 1000 across the borough. Islington is representing London and the South East in this year's "Britain in Bloom" competition, so TfL's intervention is particularly unwelcome. TfL have a long history of supporting "Britain in Bloom" and were former sponsors.