Victory for eco-warrior tree protestors as council saves them
Army of middle-class eco-protesters declare victory in Sheffield’s ‘tree war’ after council promises to save almost a third of 300 due for the chop
- Sheffield Council has agreed to keep 87 of the 305 healthy trees due for chop
- The three-year protest has been waged by eco-warriers outraged in the city
- Trees at risk included 150-year-old Vernon Oak that was subject of candlelit vigil
Protestors claimed victory in Sheffield’s tree war yesterday after a peace deal was struck that is likely to save hundreds of trees from the chop.
Outrage over the mass felling of ‘healthy’ trees in residential streets in ‘Europe’s greenest city’ prompted three years of action by middle-class eco-protestors.
Now after months of talks mediated by the Bishop of Sheffield a ‘new approach’ has been agreed between protestors, the city council and contractors Amey that will dramatically reduce the number of trees felled.
Many fewer trees will now be axed under the street management programme, and those that must go will be ‘phased’ over many years rather than chopped down immediately.
Around a third of the 300 trees due for immediate felling will be retained.
Around a third of the 300 trees due for immediate felling in Sheffield will be retained after a three-year protest by eco-warriors (demonstration pictured)
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The deal was described as a ‘compromise’ by Sheffield City Council but represents a major climbdown by the local authority, which was forced into a re-think by a form of guerrilla warfare waged by academics, retired professionals and housewives furious at what they regarded as sabotage of their streets.
The mighty 150-year-old Vernon Oak, protected from the axe by protestors carrying out a candlelit vigil last year, has now been officially saved.
Many of the doomed trees on Abbeydale Park Rise – known as Twinkle Street because of its famous Christmas illuminations – are also to be retained under the revised programme.
And dozens of war memorial trees planted a century ago for the soldiers who died in World War One have been saved too.
A ‘save me’ yellow ribbon is tied around a tree due for felling in Sheffield
The local authority signed a £2.2 billion and 25-year private finance deal with Amey in 2012 to manage the city’s street trees.
Since then 5,500 have been felled, including around 2,000 ‘healthy’ trees that were axed for being dangerous or causing damage.
Protest groups, co-ordinating their actions over social media, followed the chain gangs on a daily basis to stop them, and the local authority went to the High Court to get an injunction to prevent them climbing inside safety barriers.
Now, following the peace talks, the council has agreed to save 87 of the remaining 305 trees due to be chopped under the first phase of the programme.
Further investigations will be carried out on another 45 trees that could see many of them save, and on the remaining 173 are due to be felled over 10 years, with the possibility of some of these being saved too.
Amey will move on to the remaining 35 per cent of the city’s streets under the next phase and experts will carry out detailed work in the new year to try and save as many trees as possible.
Representatives of protest body Sheffield Tree Action Groups (STAG) have been brought on board and will be involved in investigations and decisions from now on.
The extra work to save trees will be funded entirely by Amey rather than come out of public funds.
Paul Brooke, co-chairman of STAG, said the deal was a form of ‘victory’.
He said: ‘In this day and age for an environmental protest such as ours to save 87 trees with maybe many more to come is a victory.’
Now, following the peace talks, the council has agreed to save 87 of the remaining 305 trees due to be chopped under the first phase of the programme
Mr Brooke said the agreement would save ‘many, many more trees’ and will mean a ‘very different way forward’.
He refused to predict whether any future protests would take place but welcomed the move to involve local residents in the process.
Councillor Lewis Dagnall, the city council’s cabinet member for the environment, said the revised arrangements meant the ‘character of streets won’t be altered in the way that was previously feared’.
He added: ‘There is a real appetite to come together to achieve the compromise we have been looking for, and I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this process.’
Commenting on the protests that have been policed by dozens of officers, he admitted: ‘It has been a difficult and vigorous debate and sometimes there have been scenes on the street we didn’t want to see.’
But he said he hoped the dispute could now be resolved.
The Bishop of Sheffield, the Rt Rev Dr Pete Wilcox, who chaired the peace talks organised by the Centre for Effective Disputes Resolution, said many people were ‘distressed by the dispute which has raged over our street trees’ and the agreement was ‘good news’.
‘Trees matter to the planet and they matter to communities. Trees certainly matter to Sheffield, the greenest of our cities,’ he said.
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