Fury at secret plan to fell 18,000 trees
PROTESTERS are mystified as to why council officials want to chop down half of a city’s 36,000 trees.
Campaigners have waged protests over the plan, which is part of Sheffield’s £2.2billion road and pavement resurfacing works.
The Labour-run council had previously denied ever having a target for tree removal.
Last week South Yorkshire Police were criticised over alleged “heavy-handed” conduct when 28 police officers accompanied 20 security guards to the felling of a 25ft cherry tree.
During angry clashes it was alleged that police attempted to prevent people taking pictures as workmen tried to replace several mature trees – including cherries, limes and elms – with saplings.
Council officials claim the trees – many of which are about 100 years old – are dead, diseased or dying. They say they are wrecking footpaths and roads, causing both a health and safety and an environmental risk.
Threat
But this is heavily disputed by residents – campaigning under the umbrella name Sheffield Tree Action Groups – who insist the vast majority of trees are healthy.
The council had previously tried to withhold information on how many of the 36,000 “highway trees” were under threat.
When protesters previously obtained details of the council’s 25-year agreement with private firm Amey, passages about the number of trees were removed.
But a document now published under the Freedom Of Information Act states: “The service provider [Amey] shall replace highway trees at a rate of not less than 200 per year so that 17,500 highway trees are replaced by the end of the term, such replacement to be in accordance with the highway tree replacement policy.”
Bryan Lodge, the council’s cabinet member for the environment, said: “It has always been, and remains, difficult to estimate an exact final figure for the number of trees that will need to be replaced.
“Any suggestion that 17,500 trees is a target or a requirement is an incorrect interpretation of the contract.”
But Paul Selby, whose complaints led to the revelations, said the publication of new details is a “smoking gun” that proves what campaigners such as him have been saying about tree targets.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove branded the plan “bonkers” during a visit to the city last September.
An online petition calling on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to intervene has attracted 11,400 signatures. Lord Scriven, a Liberal Democrat peer and former leader of the council, said he had written to South Yorkshire Police to question the “heavy-handed policing” when officers were assigned to help 20 private security guards keep demonstrators away.