Bitwise Enum problem in Custom Control

[Donald_a]

I have a web custom control with the following property:

private AvailablePages _LinksToDisplay = AvailablePages.Home;

public AvailablePages LinksToDisplay 
{
        get{return this._LinksToDisplay;}
	set{this._LinksToDisplay = value;}
}

AvailablePages is an enum with the flags attribute set:

[Flags()]
public enum AvailablePages : int
{
	Home = 1,
	AddNewCCRate = 2,
	AddNewCCRateValue = 4,
	AmendCCRateValue = 8,
	AddNewForecastRate = 16,
	AddNewForecastRateValue = 32,
	AmendForecastRateValue = 64,
	AddNewRate = 128,
	AddNewRateValue = 256,
	AmmendRateValue = 512
}

This works if only one enumeration is chosen through visual studio's web forms designer. Code is written to the control's tag on the .aspx page along the lines of: LinksToDisplay="Home" However, when multiple values are chosen, the designer writes something like: LinksToDisplay="Home,AmendCCRateValue" and the page throws an "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error before any code is run (EG can't get it to stop at a break point before it fails). The stack trace starts:

[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
   System.Web.Compilation.CodeDomUtility.GenerateExpressionForValue(PropertyInfo propertyInfo, Object value, Type valueType)

I think this is a problem with the conversion from the comma seperated string to a bitwise enum, but have had no luck looking for a way around it. Any help will be much appreciated.