Dubbo City Council asked the circus to remove the unlawful clown-shaped advertisements after receiving “a number of complaints”. Council was determined to uphold legislative requirements for advertising structures whether they were for permanent or visiting businesses. The inflatable clowns and one bear went up in the private yards of Dubbo homes and businesses about a week ago.

Council environmental services director Melissa Watkins had to step in after council received complaints as early as Monday.

She ruled the clowns were advertising structures and therefore required development consent under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

The circus had neither sought nor received consent from council, Ms Watkins said.

They were also contrary to a law that required advertising to relate to the development occurring on the site.

“There is no circus happening at the pump shop,” Ms Watkins said.

The circus set up the blow-up clowns at different locations for the central west leg of its $10 million “national regional” tour of almost 80 cities in Australia. Ms Watkins doubted if other towns had different provisions.

She did not agree that the council’s request - made by telephone call - to take down the clowns would harm Dubbo’s image.

“We’re consistently applying the rules here to both people visiting and the businesses and residents who are already here,” she said.

Great Moscow Circus general manager Greg Hall was resigned to the verdict on his clowns - who “have their own personalities and names”.

“We don’t want to upset anybody, so we’re just taking them down,” he said.

It was too late to put in an application because it was only 11 days until their first Dubbo show under the Disneyland setting, he said.