Rustling Road trees are being felled right now

[Flexo]

Save Nether Edge Trees will be featured on Look North this evening.

[Robin-H]

[/b]

 

Interestingly I live in one of the areas apparently affected but our road seems ok so far and haven't noticed deterioration on main road as reported, but if that is the case glad they have to fix it.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on the ribbon campaign.

 

Re: referendum on trees - whilst that's a little over the top as I understand it the council/Amey have done local consultation with residents but according to some forum members STAG has decided their opinion is more important than the residents and prevented work taking place?

 

Would it be safe to assume that if the residents of Sheffield were canvassed regarding the tree issue that STAG would continue to protest and disrupt work if the vote went against them?

 

I'm not personally aware of incidences where protestors have prevented felling from happening on streets that have not been referred to the ITP, although I am not suggesting that that has not happened only that as I do not know about those occasions I cannot properly comment on them.

 

I will say however that there seems to be a general consensus amongst members of STAG that the consultation process by the council regarding the street trees is somewhat flawed.

 

There are a number of legal requirements for council consultations and it is questionable whether or not this consultation met those requirements.

 

Firstly, consultation must occur when proposals are still at a formative stage. This was not the case in this instance. The fellings were already being implemented and there was not originally going to be any consultation at all and only began because of growing dissent about the councils plans. Many streets had their trees felled before the consultation process began.

 

Secondly, responses must be conscientiously taken into account in finalising the decision. This does not seem to be the case.

 

Whilst it is clearly not true that any decision against the recommendations of the panel implies that the panels advice is being totally ignored, the sheer number of times that the council has ignored the advice does begin to indicate that they do not intend to change their original plans. That completely negates the point of having a consultation process.

 

There is also an issue around who had the right to respond to the consultation questionnaire. For a planning application, neighbours are notified for a certain radius around the application site, as those people are the ones that are more likely to be affected by the application.

 

In this case, people who lived directly next to the trees in question, but on a different street (if the tree was to the back of their house, or on the corner of a street, for example) had no say at all, whereas people on the street who could live hundreds of metres away did get to comment. This seems inherently unfair. It also seems unfair that people who do not live on the street, but may walk down it everyday and benefit and enjoy the trees don't get a say.

 

There were also cases where people were unable to respond to the questionnaire. It had to be filled out online, and not everybody has access to the internet, or wants to fill out questionnaires online. If this was the case they were meant to write to the council to request that a paper copy was sent to them, however there was only a two week window to fill in the questionnaire and of the people who I know that requested a paper copy, none received one within the timescale and so their comments were not registered. That doesn't seem right either.

 

So on the whole, the consultation process does not seem particularly fair.

[Flexo]

The biggest flaw in the "consultation" in my opinion is that it says that trees are only ever felled as a "last resort".

 

Who would disagree with that? It sounds perfectly reasonable so no need to respond.

 

But when trees are referred to the ITP, their response usually tells the council that there are other possibilities. The "last resort" claim is a falsehood.

 

The pattern seems to be that in about 5 out of 6 cases the felling is not a "last resort" at all, and often seems to be no more than a way for Amey to save money and make more profit out of the fixed price contract.

[Robin-H]

The biggest flaw in the "consultation" in my opinion is that it says that trees are only ever felled as a "last resort".

 

Who would disagree with that? It sounds perfectly reasonable so no need to respond.

 

But when trees are referred to the ITP, their response usually tells the council that there are other possibilities. The "last resort" claim is a falsehood.

 

The pattern seems to be that in about 5 out of 6 cases the felling is not a "last resort" at all, and often seems to be no more than a way for Amey to save money and make more profit out of the fixed price contract.

 

Indeed yes that was an issue.

 

I agree that if I received a letter saying that trees were only ever felled as a last resort and that unfortunately there are some of my street that need to be felled because there is absolutely no other choice I would be sad, but I unless I knew different I would trust the council and not protest the plans.

 

It is clear that that is not the case, and so that claim in the letter was misleading.

[Eater Sundae]

The biggest flaw in the "consultation" in my opinion is that it says that trees are only ever felled as a "last resort".

 

Who would disagree with that? It sounds perfectly reasonable so no need to respond.

 

But when trees are referred to the ITP, their response usually tells the council that there are other possibilities. The "last resort" claim is a falsehood.

 

The pattern seems to be that in about 5 out of 6 cases the felling is not a "last resort" at all, and often seems to be no more than a way for Amey to save money and make more profit out of the fixed price contract.

 

Do we actually know that it is a fixed price contract? ie that Amey are paid the same amount regardless of the actual work undertaken.

 

OR

 

Is it that each item of work has its own, pre-agreed rate? For example, they could be paid £X for each tree that is retained and maintained and £Y for each one that is replaced. There would be an up front estimate of how many trees are to be replaced, giving an expected contract value.

[Flexo]

Do we actually know that it is a fixed price contract? ie that Amey are paid the same amount regardless of the actual work undertaken..

 

Yes. Amey are paid a monthly fixed fee. So there is a financial incentive for them to find spurious reasons for chopping down trees so their overall costs are lower over the 25 years of the contract.

 

Their contract specifies 14 "engineering solutions" for when tree roots have pushed a kerb out or raised a pavement a bit. Those 14 are included within the fixed fee.

 

As far as anyone can tell, those "engineering solutions" have only been used half a dozen times at most -- out of 5,000 trees felled so far!

 

For felling to be a "last resort", they ought to be able to prove that they had assessed the use of those 14 things (such as installing tree pits or using flexipave) but SCC and Amey cannot provide any such evidence.

 

The bottom line is that Amey have chopped down down a load of healthy trees so they make more profit. Outrageous, isn't it?

[Hairyloon]

Well that's quite something! Attempt to reorganise the constitutional arrangements of the city and then force some kind of local referendum in a way that appears to have never been attempted before and is based on very dubious (at best) legalities.

Go on, upon what basis do you base your assertion that the legalities are dubious?

Do you reject the validity of the Act, or are you having difficulty understanding it?

 

The only point which appears to be in contention is the existence or otherwise of any parish.

In order to resolve that question, we must first determine what a parish is, and fundamentally a parish is no more or less than the area within a parish boundary, and a parish boundary is no more or less than a line on a map.

 

There are rules for setting up a parish council, and in order to set up a parish council, you must first have a parish.

Those rules are about proving that the parish wants a council: all they say about setting up the parish is the requirement for a boundary.

 

Thus if one was to draw an arbitrary line on a map and assert that it bounds a parish, then that assertion will stand unless someone can provide grounds why it is not valid.

If a meeting were called in that area, and attended by a fair number of people, then upon what basis do you assert that that was not a valid parish meeting?

 

Once the several years of effort of doing that are complete, Amey's "investment period" of cutting down trees will already be over.

 

As I recall, the Act requires one weeks notice. There is no reason why the notice should not be submitted to the council the following morning, assuming that that is the decision of the meeting, and there is no reason why it should take the council more than a few weeks to organise: they would normally be having local elections in May anyway and there is no practical difference.

[Robin-H]

Go on, upon what basis do you base your assertion that the legalities are dubious?

Do you reject the validity of the Act, or are you having difficulty understanding it?

 

The only point which appears to be in contention is the existence or otherwise of any parish.

In order to resolve that question, we must first determine what a parish is, and fundamentally a parish is no more or less than the area within a parish boundary, and a parish boundary is no more or less than a line on a map.

 

There are rules for setting up a parish council, and in order to set up a parish council, you must first have a parish.

Those rules are about proving that the parish wants a council: all they say about setting up the parish is the requirement for a boundary.

 

Thus if one was to draw an arbitrary line on a map and assert that it bounds a parish, then that assertion will stand unless someone can provide grounds why it is not valid.

If a meeting were called in that area, and attended by a fair number of people, then upon what basis do you assert that that was not a valid parish meeting?

 

 

 

As I recall, the Act requires one weeks notice. There is no reason why the notice should not be submitted to the council the following morning, assuming that that is the decision of the meeting, and there is no reason why it should take the council more than a few weeks to organise: they would normally be having local elections in May anyway and there is no practical difference.

 

You now seem to be agreeing that Sheffield does not (in the main) have civil parishes, and would be unable to immediately call a parish meeting or set up a local poll, but are now suggesting that in order to get around that then people should set up their own parish.

 

Whilst this is possible, it is a long winded process that needs many people to sign a petition and is ultimately decided by the council. This does not happen in a week.

 

Indeed, only 100 have been created across England in the last 20 years.

[Hairyloon]

You now seem to be agreeing that Sheffield does not (in the main) have civil parishes, and would be unable to immediately call a parish meeting...

Wherever did you get that idea?

Sheffield may or may not have civil parishes, it is not a relevant issue since a civil parish is defined by a line on the map. Draw the line and call a parish meeting and you have defined the parish.

 

Whilst this is possible, it is a long winded process that needs many people to sign a petition and is ultimately decided by the council. This does not happen in a week.

You are looking at the rules for setting up a parish council: we do not need to do that so wind it back a step.

If you want to set up a parish council, then you first propose your parish boundary and then seek out people from within that boundary to sign your petition.

If you do not want to set up a council, then you can ignore all of the "and then".

[Robin-H]

Wherever did you get that idea?

Sheffield may or may not have civil parishes, it is not a relevant issue since a civil parish is defined by a line on the map. Draw the line and call a parish meeting and you have defined the parish.

 

 

You are looking at the rules for setting up a parish council: we do not need to do that so wind it back a step.

If you want to set up a parish council, then you first propose your parish boundary and then seek out people from within that boundary to sign your petition.

If you do not want to set up a council, then you can ignore all of the "and then".

 

I'm confused about what you are now arguing.

 

You agree that Sheffield is not made up of civil parishes? Yes?

 

I'm not sure why you maintain that that is irrelevant. I am not looking at the rules for making a parish council, I am looking at the rules for forming a civil parish.

 

It is not the case that I could just draw a line of the map, call those civil parish boundaries, and somehow call a parish meeting.

 

In order for the Local Government Act 1972 for apply you need to be in a civil parish.