“It gives encouragement to those of us battling with the council”

Your article recently explaining how the Tree Action Group has, after years of campaigning, been able to get a tree preservation strategy agreed with the city council is very encouraging.

And it’s a tribute to the perseverance of those who literally put their bodies on the line to get a sensible outcome.

It gives encouragement to those of us battling with the council to get the Glossop Road bus-gate scheme altered into something that makes life easier for residents, businesses and visitors needing local access to the area that the camera location has isolated since changes were made in 2017.

Calculations suggest it has taken £1 million out of the local economy and cost 70 jobs over two years.

However the council has increased income from annual penalty fines from £40,000 to £150,000, so why should the local economy matter?

Residents have six possible options to solve the problems and make local access easier.

Except a council officer recently told us that lots of their activities are unpopular with the public, but they are legal and the council has powers to implement them, whatever the public thinks.

He said Glossop Road bus-gate is one of those unpopular schemes, it won’t be changed and our six options will not be considered.

We thought councillors controlled the council but that doesn’t seem to be the case any longer – the hired hands are in charge.

Tree-gate went the same way until local and national publicity showed the brave people of Sheffield chained to trees that didn’t need felling.

So lying down in the road during peak traffic flows and chaining ourselves to the penalty charge camera may be the only way to be listened to now.

Public opinion and democracy appear to be dead in Sheffield Council.