Sheffield Council spends more than £1 million apologising for tree scandal

Costs were revealed in report that included a five-page apology to “all residents and beyond” published for a meeting of the strategy and resources committee which approved plans for reparation.

In the apology – which the council admitted was a long time coming – the authority admitted it lied to the public, caused harm, destroyed public trust, withheld information for too long and misled the courts, among other wrongdoings.

The report also set out 36 actions in total which include writing personal apologies to street tree campaigners.

In the open apology, Kate Josephs, chief executive of the council, and council leader Tom Hunt said: “We understand that apologies without actions are meaningless.

“We have set-out actions in a formal report to strategy and resources committee which will address all the inquiry’s recommendations.

“While we know the decisions Sheffield Council takes will continue to require challenging trade-offs, this [plan] should ensure lessons are learnt and a dispute of this magnitude with our residents can never happen again.

“We look forward to working with the residents of Sheffield going forward so we can continue our work to be the best we can be. We will listen and learn, we will try and maybe we will fail sometimes. Failing and making mistakes is a part of life, but refusing to listen and learn is a mistake we can never repeat.”

Costs

In total, £839,000 was spent so far on saying sorry including the costs of reimbursing campaigners the council took to court for protesting tree felling.

A further £200,000 was allocated to cover the costs associated with the action plan – bringing the total to more than £1 million. Of that, around £50,000 was earmarked for each set of actions including £10,000 on a plaque in the Town Hall in recognition of the street tree campaigners.

During the meeting Ms Josephs said there may be more costs to come.

She said: “Some of the actions in this report are very investigative and the course of action they recommend may have additional financial implications.”

Findings of the Sheffield street tree inquiry

Apologies follow the publication of damning findings from Sir Mark Lowcock’s street tree inquiry.

The long-awaited inquiry – commissioned by the council as part of a power sharing deal between Labour and the Green Party – sought “truth and reconciliation” following the infamous Streets Ahead programme that wrongly aimed to fell 17,500 street trees as part of a £2.2 billion contract between the council and Amey.

Sir Mark’s report showed the council overstretched its authority in taking drastic action against campaigners, had serious and sustained failures in leadership and misled the public, courts and an independent panel it set up to deal with the dispute.

It also found the programme was flawed from the start and a target to fell thousands of street trees was made after misinterpreting data.

Shortly after the findings were published, Labour HQ reshuffled its leadership team including booting out then council leader Terry Fox who was head of the tree programme for a year during the fiasco.