Belfast: Christmas banners remain in place

Two large Christmas banners ordered to be removed by Belfast City Council look set to remain up for Christmas.

Ten Square hotel had been told to remove the banners as they breached planning regulations.

The council confirmed it received a retrospective planning application for the advertisement which is currently being processed.

The council said it is unlikely to take legal action while the application is being considered.

The process typically takes between four and six weeks.

The banners were due to be removed by 21 November.

The hotel's management said they have no plans to take the banners down, which feature the branding of a well-known soft drink, until Christmas is over, but will do things differently next year.

"For next year we have taken a decision that we will make sure that anything that needs applied for will be applied for in a timely manner to make sure we are able to embrace the spirit of Christmas next year," said Stephen Carson, group operations director for Loughview Leisure Group, which owns Ten Square.

Mr Carson said he was very disappointed with what has happened about the banners, but has learned from the experience.

"Things need to be done by the book as we always do," he said.

"We just did not know we had to do it."

Mr Carson said: "As far as we were concerned, we had bought the building and we were shown the banners from 2012, 2013 and 2014, so we wrongly assumed that they were fine.

"All the fixings were in place so we have not touched this building in any shape or form to enable us to put the banners up.

"All that work was already done in 2011 or 2012.

"We are disappointed but we are happy that the banners are up.

"We are happy that the application has now been made to the council.

"We are happy that we know what we need to do going forward and next year we will do everything in a timely manner but all we are trying to do is send out a message that Belfast is open for business."