A CHURCH could be forced to remove religious banners because council chiefs say they pose road safety risks.
The signs at Banff Parish Church, Aberdeenshire, invite passers-by who are "looking for the way, truth and life" to join the kirk's congregation.
But Aberdeenshire Council road chiefs say the banners are a dangerous distraction to drivers and must be taken down.
The banners were put up at the entrance of the Church of Scotland building on Banff's High Street several months ago. But the local authority insisted they both required formal retrospective permission, because the B-listed church is within a historic conservation zone.
Now, planning officers are calling for the kirk's application for advertisement and listed building consent to be rejected. In a report to go before councillors, infrastructure services director Stephen Archer says that officers from various council offices had objected to the signs.
He said: "It is deemed the banners are visually obtrusive and negative to the character of the listed building, while also having a detrimental impact upon the wider conservation area which could create an unfavourable precedent."
An assessment by the council's roads development team concluded the signs could catch the eye of motorists. A council report states: "There is a school crossing patroller in operation adjacent to the church. It's possible that these banners could distract motorists' attention away from the road, resulting in an accident involving pedestrians."
But the kirk has pledged to fight to keep its banners.
The Rev David Locke will put forward his case when he addresses members of the council's Banff and Buchan area committee on Tuesday.
He said: "I cannot understand, when you have a High Street full of shop signs and Christmas lights, why they would object to our signs."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article