Sheffield Council employs three members of staff to plan trees

The community forestry project development officers will be paid between £26,511 and £30,451 in part time roles to deliver a tree planting programme across Sheffield

The council says its trees and woodlands strategy is committed to planting 10,000 trees per year.

The roles will include investigating and identifying suitable locations for new trees, based on “right place, right tree” and delivering the projects while “engaging and involving local communities” throughout the process.

The council says in the job ad: “Sheffield is one of the greenest and most wooded cities in Europe and has a rich variety of wonderful parks, woodlands and green spaces that contribute to our reputation as an outdoor city.

“As part of the councils’ parks and countryside service, the trees and woodlands team are dedicated to managing and enhancing this valuable resource now and for generations to come.

“Community Forestry has been a real success story for Sheffield; gaining national recognition for its work with the community.

“There is now an opportunity to be involved in developing tree planting and woodland creation across the city while working with schools and the local community.”

Last October the Local Government Ombudsman instructed the council to “apologise to the people of Sheffield for the tree controversy”.

It found “numerous problems” with the way it removed street trees and said the council did not, at times, act with openness and transparency when removing trees across Sheffield, and when dealing with people’s complaints about that work.

The council also had to make a private apology to the family of Alan Robshaw, a tree campaigner who made the complaint but died before it was resolved.

His complaint concerned the infamous Rustlings Road felling of eight trees during November 2016, despite specialists and the council’s own independent tree panel recommending only one of the trees needed removing.

In December 2019, the council said “a number of areas of common ground” had been reached between Amey and Sheffield Trees Action Groups and there was a “new approach” to managing trees.