Trouble brews over city’s trees
The three men in the street outside her house were there to take down one of the trees she loves, but Sue Unwin nevertheless offered them refreshments — two teas and an orange drink. She did so, she said, with an eye to buying time until fellow tree lovers could get there to help her stop the felling.
The plan worked, at least for that day. Unwinsaid she thought nothing more about it until a couple of months later, when police showed up on her doorstep asking questions about what exactly was in those drinks.
Sheffield’s streets are lined with around 36,000 lime, elm and cherry trees, some showering its sidewalks with pink blossoms. The city’s plans to fell 6,000 of the trees during a five-year period had already prompted years of protests and confrontations.
But matters reached a climax of sorts with the case of the toxic tea, or “Teagate,” as it has come to be known, in which Unwin was questioned about whether the drinks might have been spiked with a laxative.
“I was absolutely shocked that they could suggest that anyone would do that,” said Unwin, 59, in her home on Chatsworth Rd., as she sipped hot — and definitely poison-free — Darjeeling tea.
Removing trees is just one part of an almost $4 billion, 25-year contract for a highway and sidewalk maintenance project in Sheffield that some believe is years overdue. Many trees planted more than a century ago are coming to the end of their expected lives and are being replaced by saplings, while the roots of others are cracking sidewalks and damaging property, said Bryan Lodge, Cabinet member for the environment at Sheffield City Council.
“We are only doing what our Victorian forefathers did,” he added.
For now, the Teagate trail seems to have gone cold. Unwin, who thinks the episode was designed to discredit protesters, said she had been told by her lawyer that there would be no further action against her or her husband.
But Darren Butt, account director for Amey, the company doing the maintenance work, said the incident was a sign of an increasingly lawless protest.
“Teagate is genuine, I can guarantee it’s genuine,” he said, adding that he was not accusing any individual, but that the three victims had been ill enough to stay off work for more than a day.
Despite the opposition to the project, around 5,700 of the targeted trees have been cut down. The remaining 300 are those that protesters have worked hardest to protect.
The tree fellers say they remain convinced that they are doing residents a favour.
But campaigners say most of the trees are free of problems. They promised to continue the resistance.