Sheffield comes third in tree felling league

The city has made headlines worldwide for its controversial contract with Amey which has seen ten percent of its streets trees felled. Campaigners say many of the trees were healthy.

Newcastle tops the league table with 8,414 trees felled, Edinburgh is second with 4,435 and Sheffield comes in third with 3,529.

The statistics came following a Sunday Times investigation, using freedom of information requests.

Chris Rust of Sheffield Tree Action Group said: “It’s not surprising that Sheffield comes high up in these figures. Alongside all the routine tree maintenance and replacements in parks and woodlands, there’s a huge number of healthy street trees being felled for questionable reasons.

“We are not particularly concerned about the work being done by parks and woodlands staff who seem to take a very reasonable approach.”

Sheffield’s £2 billion, 25-year Streets Ahead project has seen thousands of trees - assessed by Amey as dead, dying, diseased, damaging or dangerous - cut down.

Trees such as oak, lime, sycamore, horse chestnut and ash are targets because their roots can spread along pavements and cause damage to buildings and roads.