Save Sheffield Trees & Smithy Woods — campaign update

5.11.15 Latest:

An inde­pen­dent pan­el aim­ing to resolve dis­agree­ments involv­ing the felling of trees in Sheffield has been set up.

It fol­lows thou­sands of peo­ple sup­port­ing a cam­paign to stop 12 trees being chopped down on Rustlings Road.

Com­mu­ni­ty group Save Sheffield Trees said it would wait to see the “terms of ref­er­ence” of the new pan­el.

A coun­cil spokesman said a sur­vey will be sent to res­i­dents when upgrad­ing works which affect trees.

If over half of respon­dents object, it will then be referred to the Inde­pen­dent Tree Pan­el.

After con­sid­er­ing the evi­dence, the pan­el will then pro­vide advice to the coun­cil about the pro­pos­als.

15 Sep­tem­ber 2015: Cam­paign­ers took their fight against con­tro­ver­sial tree felling to the door of Sheffield Coun­cil con­trac­tor Amey, which is car­ry­ing out the work.

 

A demon­stra­tion was held at the firm’s Olive Grove Road depot in Hee­ley yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Cam­paign­ers across the city con­tin­ue to call for a pause on felling while a for­mal tree strat­e­gy is devel­oped.

David Dil­ner, from Sheffield Tree Action Group, said: “Since the last tree forum our mem­ber­ship has grown from 200 to 800 – that demon­strates the lev­el of frus­tra­tion and it is grow­ing apace.

16 Sep­tem­ber 2015: Cam­paign­ers fight­ing felling in Sheffield have set up a camp near to 11 trees which have become the ‘sym­bol’ of the city-wide con­tro­ver­sy.

Mem­bers of the Sheffield Tree Action Group (STAG) pitched their tents in End­cliffe Park on Rustlings Road to pro­tect trees which are due to be felled as part of Sheffield City Coun­cil’s £2bn road improve­ment scheme.

The orig­i­nal dri­ve to save those 11 trees led to a 13,000-strong peti­tion, which trig­gered a debate in Sheffield Town Hall and was the spark behind calls for a for­mal city-wide tree strat­e­gy to be devel­oped by Sheffield Coun­cil.

Save Our Road­side Trees (SORT) cam­paign­er Calvin Payne, who was sleep­ing over in the tent last night, said all sup­plies had been donat­ed and passers-by were sup­port­ive.

He added: “This road is sym­bol­ic, although the cam­paign is city wide, and we do want a win here to inspire peo­ple across the city.”

Aims of the camp were to enable cam­paign­ers to take peace­ful action quick­ly if felling did begin and also to raise more aware­ness as protests spread across the city.

Protests have been held over the last few months in oth­er parts of the city to try and pre­vent trees being felled.

In June/July, STAG gath­ered more that 10,000 sig­na­tures on a peti­tion call­ing for the coun­cil to stall the plans until inde­pen­dent experts assessed the trees.

Back­ground: With an esti­mat­ed two mil­lion trees – four for every per­son – Sheffield holds a strong claim to be Europe’s green­est city. But the South York­shire city’s tree-lined streets have become a bat­tle­ground in an angry row that has pit­ted res­i­dents against coun­cil high­ways offi­cials.

Con­trac­tors are assess­ing 36,000 road­side trees on behalf of Sheffield City Coun­cil to decide which need to be felled as part of a £2bn road improve­ment scheme.

About 2,000 have already been cut down since the Streets Ahead scheme was launched in 2012, although the coun­cil says it has replaced them all with younger trees and has plant­ed 50,000 extra trees in 17 new wood­lands.

But res­i­dents have launched their own grass­roots cam­paigns to defend the road­side trees, some of which are 100 years old, and the dis­pute is becom­ing increas­ing­ly heat­ed. A protest camp has been set up in a city park and oth­er res­i­dents have been rush­ing out of their homes to dis­rupt work­men arriv­ing in their streets.

“Res­i­dents across the city want to save these trees,” said ecol­o­gist and envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­er David Garlovsky, a spokesman for the Sheffield Trees Action Group. “Eight or nine groups have sprung up in dif­fer­ent areas. These trees are there for our well­be­ing and cut­ting them down will increase pol­lu­tion. The coun­cil haven’t looked after these trees in the past and they now have a prob­lem on their hands, but there seems to be a blitz on now to cut down as many as pos­si­ble, as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

Only last week it was report­ed that the coun­cil was refus­ing to answer Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion requests from res­i­dents about the trees because the requests were con­sid­ered “vex­a­tious”.

Sheffield City Coun­cil apol­o­gised last week after Steve Robin­son, the head of high­ways, was secret­ly record­ed alleged­ly say­ing “we’re not inter­est­ed” in res­i­dents’ “non­sense” rea­sons for sav­ing indi­vid­ual trees.

Res­i­dents have spent a month under can­vas at a protest camp in the city’s End­cliffe Park to pro­tect 11 lime trees on neigh­bour­ing Rustlings Road, which they say are under threat. A peti­tion has attract­ed 10,000 sig­na­tures.

Louise Wilcock­son, who lives close to the park, said: “I walk past those trees around five or six times a day. We have to save them – not just for the peo­ple on this street but for the entire city.”

Res­i­dents in West­ern Road, Crookes, have also ral­lied around a Lon­don plane tree – one of sev­er­al plant­ed in mem­o­ry of war heroes. They say an inde­pen­dent sur­vey has found that the tree is in “rea­son­able health”, in con­trast with a contractor’s report say­ing it is a “safe­ty risk”.

Sheffield City Coun­cil says the aim of the Streets Ahead project is to upgrade the city’s roads, pave­ments and street light­ing as part of a Pri­vate Finance Ini­tia­tive project. Offi­cials say Sheffield is the green­est city in the UK and is in a “unique posi­tion” to car­ry out this “vital work”.

It also says an inde­pen­dent sur­vey iden­ti­fied that three-quar­ters of Sheffield’s street trees were dead, dan­ger­ous or dying, and need­ed replac­ing. The con­trac­tor, Amey, is work­ing to replace trees that fit cri­te­ria known as the “six Ds”, which also include those found to be dis­eased, dam­ag­ing or dis­crim­i­nat­ing – obstruct­ing safe pas­sage for prams and wheel­chairs.

The main rea­son that is being giv­en for felling these trees on the indi­vid­ual sur­vey reports is that they are dam­ag­ing the pave­ment, not that they are dis­eased or dying and that it is eas­i­er to remove the tree than find any oth­er way of mak­ing the pave­ment flat. Most of these trees are around 100 years old and are species such as Limes and Lon­don Panes, and so have a life expectan­cy of 300–400 years. These trees are teenagers, and will last for many more gen­er­a­tions if Sheffield City Coun­cil lets them.

I think some­one has con­fused a 2006–2007 sur­vey that said 75% of the trees are over-mature (which does not real­ly mean any­thing — 100 year old trees, with a 400 year life expectan­cy fall in to this cat­e­go­ry — it is a forestry term relat­ing to the val­ue of the tim­ber), and the lat­er sur­vey in 2012 cat­e­go­rized trees accord­ing to oth­er cri­te­ria (the 6 Ds), includ­ing that trees were dam­ag­ing pave­ments. I sus­pect this mis­un­der­stand­ing is the coun­cil’s of the sur­vey the com­mis­sioned, rather than the jour­nal­ist, as we have seen it else­where. They appear to be felling most of the city’s street trees based on mis­un­der­stand­ing a report…

Sheffield Tree Action Group

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Anoth­er sim­i­lar fight in Sheffield ‑Take Action for Smithy Woods

If you are con­cerned about the loss of ancient wood­land, local green spaces, local wildlife and wildlife sites or wor­ried about inap­pro­pri­ate devel­op­ment in the green belt and ero­sion of eco­log­i­cal net­works then please object to this appli­ca­tion. Help us to Save Smithy Wood!

For background information about Smithy Wood and this case click here.

An out­line plan­ning appli­ca­tion has been sub­mit­ted by ‘Extra MSA’ group that pro­pos­es to build a new motor­way ser­vice area on Smithy Wood Ancient Wood­land and Local Wildlife Site close to Junc­tion 35 of the M1 in the Ecclesfield/Chapeltown area of Sheffield. The devel­op­ment includes a large fast food court, 80-bed hotel, petrol sta­tion and car park.

There is now a FINAL oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­ment on this appli­ca­tion fol­low­ing the sub­mis­sion of fur­ther mate­r­i­al by the devel­op­er. The more objec­tions that are received by the City Coun­cil, the more like­ly the appli­ca­tion is to be refused. It does not mat­ter if you have object­ed pre­vi­ous­ly – you can always refer to your pre­vi­ous sub­mis­sion or re-iter­ate your points.

You have until the Fri­day 13th Novem­ber to sub­mit your objec­tion to Sheffield City Coun­cil Plan­ning Dept. This is how to respond to the plan­ning appli­ca­tion.