It's unanimous as Black Country flag gets thumbs up from Express & Star readers

A total of 77.2 per cent of people who took part in the survey said they liked the flag.

And there were scores of comments from people saying they would be proudly displaying it in their window or outside their home today.

It comes as political activist Patrick Vernon OBE described the flag as 'offensive and insensitive' and said its chains were a 'disturbing' image of an industry that profited from the transatlantic slave trade and colonial rule in Africa.

Mr Vernon, who grew up in All Saints, Wolverhampton, and is a former London Labour councillor, said the Black Country had shied away from addressing the role its industries played in slavery and that community leaders were trying to 'pretend it never happened'.

But readers who entered the survey said chain-making was part of the region's heritage and should be celebrated.

One reader who filled the survey in online said: "It is a great, simple design and has the right colours for the Black Country and a clear symbol of what we are about."

And another added: "It looks great and it's lovely to see so many people with a flag that means something to us."

It was two years ago designed by Stourbridge pupil Gracie Sheppard, who was 12 at the time.

The design was inspired by Elihu Burrit, the American Consul to Birmingham who described the region as 'black by day and red by night'.

The competition was open to anyone of any age in the Black Country.

The brief read that the winning design for the flag would do the following: "Honour our past and celebrate our present and our future, have an emotional and symbolic potency, have a simplicity of design and clarity of colour, be easily recognisable and distinctive, be designed to be flown – and so should be identifiable when in movement and when at rest."

Thousands of the flags have been sold and have appeared at international football matches, test matches, and even at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.

A range of products from pin badges, mugs, and t-shirts are sold bearing the distinctive Black Country flag.