AFTER TREE-MAGEDDON!
How 300 town trees are being felled a week by elf ’n’ safety jobsworths who say it’s cheaper to chop than maintain them
THE trees lining Western Road in the Crookes area of Sheffield are a living reminder of those who gave their lives for their country. The London plane trees, horse chestnuts, sycamores and limes were planted in 1919, in memory of former pupils of the nearby Westways Primary School killed during World War I.
A century later just over 50 remain, silent witnesses to the ultimate sacrifice. But their official war memorial status — recognised by the Imperial War museum — does not protect them from modern bureaucracy and commercial demands.
Twenty are to be cut down in a campaign of tree felling orchestrated by Sheffield City Council and its highways contractor, the infrastructure support company Amey, that has seen 4,500 trees chopped.
Another 1,500 are marked for destruction in the coming year.
Residents have been incensed by the loss of friends that have shaded their roads for decades. Their anger has been increased by the heavy-handed treatment of protesters by police.
‘ You don’t desecrate war memorials,’ says Alan Story, a retired academic fighting to save the trees, which are being felled because they are considered a ‘hazard’ by — you’ve guessed it — health and safety experts.
‘It is unbelievably crass,’ says Ian Rotherham, professor of environmental geography at Sheffield Hallam University, who once worked as the city’s official ecologist. ‘And unnecessary. The trees are perfectly healthy.
‘People develop an enormous emotional attachment to what they see as an irreplaceable part of their home environment.’
The situation in Sheffield is not unique. Across the country, trees lining roads, streets and avenues are being felled in vast numbers — more than 150,000 since 2010.
Councils insist more than half a million saplings were planted over the same time. But these are largely in parks and open spaces, not the residential areas where they lift hearts with their beauty and absorb traffic pollution.
Local authorities even cite discrimination against the disabled as a reason for felling trees planted in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and earlier. But campaigners seeking to save them from the chainsaw claim the real reason is money — mature trees lining thoroughfares must be managed more carefully than the saplings that may replace them.
Figures obtained from councils by the i newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act show 60 mature trees a day are being felled. Of the 150,000 lost, 280 had been protected by preservation orders and 250 were classed as exceptional due to age, size or historical significance.
Local authorities planted 113,000 replacements, but not necessarily in built-up areas.
Councils said they felled 81.6 per cent of trees because they were dead or diseased. Another 8.9 per cent were claimed to be causing ‘structural damage’.
But some were cut down for murkier reasons, such as being the ‘wrong specimens’. Others were felled in ‘landscape improvements’ or because of ‘ poor aesthetic crown shape’. One local authority was brave enough to cite ‘councillor pressure’. A few were prepared to admit they had felled trees in error.
‘Urban street trees are loved by the vast majority of people who live alongside them,’ says Oliver Newham of the Woodland Trust, which is about to unveil a scheme supporting those trying to protect local trees. ‘These figures and our email inboxes show an alarming increase in losses.
‘Trees have many benefits in urban areas, such as absorbing pollutants, providing shade and preventing flash flooding.
‘They are essential to a happy and healthy population. Councils need to think twice before taking the axe to them.’
Birmingham City Council, which tops the list for trees felled, also employs Amey.
Of 9,200 cut down, it has so far replaced 7,800. One of those lost was a London plane tree thought to be the city’s oldest, in defiance of a petition to save it.
SIMILAR high-handedness is to be seen in Leicester, where 50 mature trees lining the approach to the Lutyens designed war memorial in Victoria Park were felled.
But feelings are running at their highest in Sheffield. The city’s Labour-run council is pushing ahead with its Streets Ahead programme, funded by a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract.
It is promising 600 extra highway trees above the 36,000 in existence at the start of the £2.2 billion, 25year contract with Amey.
‘We only replace a tree if it is dead, dying, diseased, dangerous; damaging footpaths, private property or roads; or discriminatory,’ says a council spokesman of Sheffield’s ‘Six Ds’ policy.
‘Discriminatory means it creates difficulty for elderly, disabled and partially sighted people.’
According to Professor Rotherham, the discrimination criterion is a red herring.
‘The council says tree roots are blocking pavements for use by the disabled,’ he says. ‘We asked how many complaints had been received from disabled people across the city about trees. And the answer? Not one.
‘The Six Ds allow you to find a reason to cut down almost any tree if you want it gone. This is a slash-and-burn policy involving removing as many big trees as possible to minimise costs.
‘most of these trees, described by the council as mature, are babies — they are just 100 years old and can live to 300.’
The Save Sheffield Trees campaign group argues that Amey fails to engage in real consultation and is motivated by profit.
‘If they blitz the city’s trees in the first five years of their contract, they can spend the next 20 years with lower maintenance costs,’ it argues.
Commercial confidentiality surrounding the PFI contract, says the group, allows Amey and the council to evade scrutiny on a matter involving public money.
Amey is certainly prepared to go to bizarre lengths to carry out its task, backed by an over-zealous South Yorkshire Police.
One morning in November, the inhabitants of Rustlings Road were woken before 5am by a team from Amey, who told them to move their cars if they did not want to see them crushed by breakfast.
Freda Brayshaw, a retired French teacher and resident, was having none of this bullying and stepped over a taped barrier towards one of her beloved trees.
The 71-year-old was arrested (for the first time in her life) and placed in a police car with her friend Jenny Hockey, a professor emeritus of sociology at Sheffield University.
Eight trees were felled in the dawn raid, likened by local Mp Nick Clegg to ‘something you’d expect in Putin’s Russia rather than Sheffield’.
So desperate were the police to justify the arrests of two elderly women that they tried to use a clause in trades union legislation making it an offence to stop people doing their lawful work.
CHARGES against the women, and protesters arrested during similar demonstrations, were soon dropped following a public outcry.
Bryan Lodge, city council cabinet member for the environment, says the confidentiality surrounding the Amey contract, involving the redacting of public documents, has fostered a culture of conspiracy among campaigners.
‘It costs more to replace a mature tree than to maintain it,’ he says.
It is thought that felling a large tree costs in the region of £1,000.
When asked to provide figures, Cllr Lodge says Amey receives a monthly ‘ unitary payment’ to maintain Sheffield’s highway network, including roads, pavements, street lights and trees. ‘ We don’t have a breakdown,’ he says.
Not all councils are criticised. The Woodland Trust praises Peterborough City Council for retaining healthy trees unless there is an over-riding reason to fell them. The city is looking to plant a sapling for every one of its 190,000- strong population over the next 20 years.
‘Urban trees do need management and some have to be removed,’ says Professor Rotherham. ‘ But can we start from the point that mature trees should, as a matter of principle, be retained?’