Bad name without any help from me

The first thing to remember is that trees are the lungs of our planet, they provide us with oxygen, they protect us from pollution and flooding and without them human beings could not exist.

JT, (Letters, November 22), says ‘shouting the loudest doesn’t make you right’ when in fact none of the tree campaigners are ‘shouting’ but merely peacefully trying to protect the city’s wonderful healthy street trees from being massacred.

The correspondent mentions the recent Western Road service of remembrance for the young soldiers who attended the local school and gave their lives in WW1.

The trees that were planted at the time in their memory have flourished over the years and enabled those young men’s spirits to live on as the trees have grown to maturity which no new ‘replacements’ could provide.

He/she states that ‘the residents have complained of their road being hijacked by protesters’. I did not attend the event but understand it was a very friendly and poignant occasion with residents in fact joining in and providing tea and biscuits for the tree campaigners.

It is also interesting to note that the results of a recent survey carried out showed that 98 per cent of Western Road residents wished to retain their trees.

The writer mentions the Vernon oak and seems to think that because it started life growing in a field around 150 years ago it cannot be allowed to continue to live alongside houses that have since been built, even though it is not causing any serious problems. JT also says that in a previous letter I ‘saw fit to mention Rustlings Road again’ which I have every justification to do considering 59 out of 65 households objected to the trees being removed.

Sheffield City Council and Amey should NEVER be allowed to forget their disgraceful actions on November 17, 2016 when they arrived on Rustlings Road to carry out the pre-dawn felling of healthy trees, most of which were recommended to be saved by the Independent Tree Panel.

The residents are still suffering from the traumatic effects of that dreadful day and it is very disappointing that the candlelit walk and a gathering in Endcliffe Park on the first anniversary last week which I attended received no mention in The Star.

JT says “please stop giving our beautiful city a bad name, you are in the minority”.

One of the many lies being perpetrated by SCC is that ‘only a small minority of people object to the tree felling programme’, which is far from the truth.

As for my giving our city a bad name, well all I can say is the council has successfully managed to do that all by themselves without any help from me.

Susan Richardson

Westminster Crescent, Lodge Moor, Sheffield, S10