It was certainly a fact that most of the metal collected was entirely unsuitable for the War effort, which was (I think) mainly concerned with building planes, and manufacturing bombs.
Personally, I don't know what they did with the unused metal, but it seem highly logical that it was dumped at sea, rather than admit that a war-time government got it wrong.
The railings certainly weren't returned to their original owners, and I agree that it was an act of vandalism that the streets of the country must still regret.
As I said, there are not many original railings left today, because most people believed they were helping their country, but I did notice that the Belvedere School has some of its original railings.
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It looks like churches were exempt, as St Luke's and Great George Street Congregational (to name but two) retained their railings.
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