Sheffield tree inquiry: Protesters feel ‘vindicated’ by hard-hitting report’s criticisms of Sheffield Council

Members of Sheffield Tree Action Group (STAG) and fellow protesters gathered yesterday (March 6) to celebrate the findings of the report into the way that the controversial decision to cut down 17,500 city street trees as part of a contract to improve city roads roads turned into what the report chair described as a ‘dark episode for Sheffield’.

The group met on Meersbrook Park Road, which was one of the city streets where people protesting to stop work on trees being felled repeatedly faced down police and security guards five years ago.

Sir Mark Lowcock, who chaired the independent inquiry panel into the Sheffield street trees dispute, also said: “The dispute did significant harm. Thousands of healthy and much loved trees were lost. Many more could have been. Sheffield’s reputation was damaged.

“Public trust and confidence in the council was undermined. It has not been fully rebuilt. And people on all sides suffered anxiety, stress, injuries, wider physical and mental health problems and other harms which some continue to carry.”

Council leaders and Amey have made apologies and pledged to learn the lessons of the 100,000-word report.

Relieved

Rich Ward, co-chair of STAG, said: “Sir Mark has shown that pretty well everything we had believed about our city council’s actions is true. A lot of people will be feeling relieved and vindicated today.

“We are committed to working with the council to rebuild trust, explore reparation and to ensure that something like this never happens again in our city.”

Judy Stewart, who spent long hours protecting trees, said: “This is a very emotional day for me. We spent huge amounts of time on the street, often in freezing weather, facing the intimidation of large numbers of police and security guards, it’s such a relief to discover that it was all worthwhile and we may have achieved a lasting change in Sheffield and maybe in other towns and cities.”Heather Mitchell lives on Upper Albert Road, around the corner to Meersbrook Park Road. She joined many of the protests on the road and said she also feels vindicated by the report.

Heather said: “I think Sir Mark Lowcock has been very clear in his reading of the people that were involved. He has seen through the obfuscation and lies of the council.

“He has seen the council very clearly or what they are and he has also seen very clearly the protesters in almost all situations behaved with incredible restraint over what was happening. There was a small slap on the wrist because some people possibly associated with STAG were rude to some other people and that’s about all.”

Support

Heather said that STAG are “an anarchic group – it’s just people who got together – there’s no membership, not really a leadership” and they mainly communicated about activities through various WhatsApp groups.

“We basically did our own thing,” she added. “Nobody was forced into anything. Everybody did their own thing and we basically banded together and supported each other.

“I look round at the people here, I think I’ve met all of them through the trees. They’re like a tribe, good friends, and I know that they’re people that I can rely on because we have relied on each other for support and linked arms together around trees, held each other up, cried about it and went through a lot.

“We were right, right from the beginning.”

Heather explained that an analysis made for the council in 2008 by Elliott Consulting Ltd on the state of the city’s street trees found that 74% of 35,000 trees were ‘mature or overmature’. The report says that the council misinterpreted this in its business case for the Streets Ahead highways improvement programme to state that a large proportion of those trees were “now ready for replacement”.

She said: “The Elliott report was a good report that was then totally misinterpreted by the council. They were told they were misinterpreting it and they knew what they were doing and they were wrong.”

Flawed

She said that the phrase ‘overmature’ is used for crop trees but it doesn’t apply to street trees, which can live healthily for many years after they reach that stage of development.

Heather said that act of misinterpretation led to a flawed business plan for street tree management with a target of felling 17,500 trees. The council said no such target was written into the Amey Streets Ahead contract until a lot of work from campaigners using Freedom of Information requests finally revealed the truth.

Heather pointed out that the inquiry report said that “developing and then adopting a flawed plan was a failure of strategic leadership” by senior council officers and political leaders between 2008 and 2012.

She said: “The council lacked transparency and said things that were misleading and sometimes dishonest.”

Asked what should happen now, Heather said: “There is much talk about lessons being learned. They really need to be learned and acted upon, not just about trees but about the way that the council interacts and listens to the people of Sheffield.

“The council is elected but they still need to listen to Sheffield people about education, about health, about climate and they need to work with us, not against us.”

To see the full report and to watch or read Sir Mark’s statement speaking about its publication, go to the Sheffield City Council website here: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/independent-inquiry-into-street-trees-dispute

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