Happy Summer Solstice
Day: Jun 21, 2023
The Felling of Thousands of Healthy Trees
Sheffield City Council has issued a four-page apology to residents after an inquiry found it had behaved dishonestly during a dispute over the felling of healthy trees in the city in a £2.2billion street improvement project.
On March 6, the Sheffield Street Trees Inquiry Report by Sir Mark Lowcock found the council also misled the high court twice during the row – during which elderly residents were arrested and held for eight hours for trying to protect the trees.
In autumn 2016, council contractors dragged residents out of bed to move their cars at 4.45am to begin cutting down trees, before protesters arrived. The scenes were compared to ‘something you’d expect to see in Putin’s Russia’ by former Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg.
On another occasion, the council applied for an injunction against Green member Alison Teal – one of its own councillors. She was taken to court for breaching the injunction but found not guilty.
The removal of trees, which became known locally as the ‘chainsaw massacre’, provoked scenes involving protesters, van-loads of police and arrests in some of the city’s leafiest middle-class suburbs.
The police came at five o’clock one Thursday morning, banging on doors to inform bleary-eyed homeowners that they needed to get out of bed and move their cars.
Residents who failed to comply were swiftly punished: within minutes, around ten vehicles were loaded on to lorries and towed away, past road blocks that now prevented access to either end of the street.
Inside this cordon, dissent was crushed. Three people who took umbrage at the pre-dawn raid were slapped in handcuffs, including a thirtysomething man and two grandmothers in their early 70s.
The elderly duo, a retired sociology professor called Jenny Hockey, and her neighbour Freda Brayshaw, a former teacher, were driven to the police station for questioning. It would be eight hours before they were released.
How the controversial saga unfolded
Sheffield City Council’s controversial tree felling programme was billed as a £2.2bn, 25-year street improvement works.
This is how it unfolded.
2012: The £2.2 billion ‘Streets Ahead’ contract was signed to improve pavements and street lighting. It included the management of Sheffield’s highway trees.
2014: Felling notices began to appear on trees, some of which were more than 100 years old.
2015: Campaign groups were set up to protect the trees on various streets.
November 2015: The Independent Tree Panel (ITP) is established as a specialist group to resolve ongoing disagreements.
December 2015: By the end of the year, campaigners claim more than 3,000 trees had been felled across the city.
February 2016: Sheffield residents apply to the High Court seeking a Judicial Review, resulting in an interim injunction which halted felling from February to April 2016.
June 2016: When felling resumed, police became involved as protesters clash with workmen. Other protestors are arrested as protests carry on throughout the year.
November 2016: The council publish ITP’s recommendation to save seven of threatened treesat 4.30am, hours before contractors tear down eight.
December 2016: By the end of the year, campaigners claim more than 5,000 trees had been felled across the city.
2017: Protests continue.
2018: Freedom of Information data shows Council planned to chop down nearly half of the 36,000 trees along the city’s streets.
2020: Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman release their report saying the council acted dishonestly.
Source: Sheffield Tree Action Group
‘The Inquiry found serious errors of strategic leadership and wisdom of decision making during the dispute.
‘The errors made were enabled by an unsympathetic culture and problems with the quality of advice, capability, systems and resourcing which were not addressed when they should have been.’
The dispute began in 2012 when the council signed a 25-year deal with firm Amey. The deal included the removal and replacement of 17,500 street trees.
Opposition within the community to the felling grew and by 2015, an ‘independent tree panel’ was set up. But the inquiry found the council misled the panel, the public and the courts over what could be achieved with the money provided by Amey.
Sir Mark Lowcock wrote: ‘From 2016, the council rejected many of the recommendations the ITP made in good faith to save trees.
Setting up an independent panel, misleading it and then ignoring substantial numbers of its recommendations was destructive of public trust and confidence.’
He concluded: ‘The dispute did significant harm.
‘Thousands of healthy and loved trees were lost. Many more could have been.
‘Sheffield’s reputation was damaged. Public trust and confidence in the council was undermined. It has not been fully rebuilt.’
The apology from Sheffield City Council addresses missed opportunities and inadequate risk assessment, sustained failure of strategic leadership, a culture that was unreceptive to external views and discouraging of internal dissent and a lack of transparency, openness and honesty.
Tree Weaver 