VOTING for Herefordshire’s new official flag will begin in early September with the winning design due to be revealed on November 2, the Herefordshire Flag Committee announced today.

The shortlisted entries will be named when the schools go back after the August bank holiday and the county’s residents will then have about a month to make their choice. Everyone aged five and over will be eligible to vote.

“We had hope to be voting in July,” said David Marshall, chairman of the committee.

“But the process has been more complex than expected. This is partly a problem of success. The huge number of entries – 690 – inevitably meant that things took longer.

“We’ve waited 1,000 years for this, so we thought it was worth taking a few more weeks to get everything right.”

Entries came from schools and colleges across the county.

Herefordshire is one of only three of England’s 39 historic counties not to have its own registered flag, alongside Leicestershire and Hampshire.