The Guardian Editorial on Sheffield’s trees: decline and fall
We need greenery to feed the forests of our imaginations. The protests in Sheffield are about saving a community that has become marooned from local decision-making processes by austerity
Thursday 1 December 2016.
ABSTRACT. Residents of the city of Sheffield are at war with their council over the cutting down of trees. According to protesters, 4,000 have already succumbed since the council signed a contract with Amey, a private contractor commissioned to improve the city’s roads. The battle of Rustlings Road, on 17 November, was an inglorious affair: on the one hand, men wielding chainsaws against the street’s trees at 5am; on the other, three residents, including sociology professor emeritus Jenny Hockey and retired teacher Freda Brayshaw arrested and detained for staging a peaceful protest against the felling. Today two other opponents of the fellings in Sheffield pleaded not guilty to charges under the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, which criminalises those who prevent a worker from carrying out a lawful task, in this case tree surgeons. Meanwhile, residents are rallying to protect the trees of Western Road, also threatened – and these venerable planes considerably raise the stakes in the dispute, since they were planted in 1919 to commemorate pupils from a nearby school who died in the first world war.
But the Sheffield dispute is not just about an atavistic affection for the forests of our imaginations: it is about a community deracinated from local decision-making processes by austerity. Sheffield’s agreement with a private contractor is a pragmatic measure in a city hit by appalling cuts to services. It is cheaper to fell trees, perhaps replacing them with younger specimens, than to maintain old ones; Amey has its bottom line to consider, and is not directly accountable to local voters. But the trees matter to people, and it is heartening to see Sheffield’s protesters come together in defence of the handsome, beloved planes that line its streets. It is not the first time in recent years that urban communities have rallied in defence of the precious green growing things in their midst: in Glasgow, residents have waged a fierce and long battle against the council’s plan to sell off the North Kelvin Meadow and Children’s Wood for housing, defending this patch of land, with its wild orchids and elegant birches, from a needless housing project. Just as Scottish ministers should now step in decisively to stop the Kelvinside development plans, so Sheffield should reconsider the fate of its trees – and save them from the axe.
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