Council tree felling...

[Cyclone]

A point he failed to make despite a number of posts on the subject.

 

First time I've heard that there was no address - a number of posts on the STAG website stated they were addressed to "The Occupier".

 

The point was made about 100 pages ago, I didn't realise I needed to rehash the entire thing because you're not bothering to keep up.

 

---------- Post added 18-09-2018 at 10:30 ----------

 

And presumably the council had to use "The Occupier" due to the constraints of the Data Protection Act.

 

Don't be ridiculous.

 

Sending addressed letters to people is clearly not a breach of the DPA or the now GDPR.

 

---------- Post added 18-09-2018 at 10:32 ----------

 

I’ve never said it was support - I said it was apathy. They’re not bothered.

 

You equally can’t have it both ways - you can’t raise the issue that the envelope was not clear as to what it contained as a factor and then back track as to what extent it impacted the vote.

 

I didn't state a specific level of impact, you argued against a point I hadn't made.

 

Given the unaddressed brown envelope delivered without postage mark or stamp, do you now believe that it's likely that quite a few people just binned it without looking? You won't of course believe that the council did it like that deliberately to minimise the number of responses...

 

---------- Post added 18-09-2018 at 10:33 ----------

 

Hmmm...

 

... maybe the people who were 'not bothered' foolishly trusted the council to do the 'right thing' and only remove those trees that really needed to be removed on safety grounds, and never considered the fact that they might lose their healthy trees purely for financial reasons?

 

Maybe there should be a second vote now that all the implications are known... it seems to be the thing to do these days if you don't get the result you want first time.

 

Quite likely that a lot of people believed the council would do as they'd publicly said, which like most of what they publicly say, turned out to be a lie.

[Guest makapaka]

You can interpret it as you wish.

 

But in the walkley bank example

6% were in favour of the tree felling

3% were against the tree felling

91% didn’t bother to reply

 

If you believe that suggests the majority of people were against the felling that’s up to you.

 

I would say most people were indifferent to the issue on that basis.

[Cyclone]

And you're going to ignore unaddressed, brown envelope delivered without stamp or postmark, because to consider it would result in criticising the council for a deliberate, cynical attempt to have the survey ignored by as many residents as possible.

[Flexo]

The letter which accompanied the survey in the plain brown envelope said that trees would only be felled "as a last resort". That sounds fine so there's no need to return the survey.

 

This turned out not to be true. Some 80% of trees listed for felling do not need felling, and felling these is not a "last resort" - it's the first. The contract has a target to fell 17,500 street trees and penalties if the contractor does not meet their targets, so it incentivises the contractor (Amey) to drum up spurious reasons to fell trees.

[Guest makapaka]

And you're going to ignore unaddressed, brown envelope delivered without stamp or postmark, because to consider it would result in criticising the council for a deliberate, cynical attempt to have the survey ignored by as many residents as possible.

 

I’m not ignoring it - I’m saying that citing that’s as an example for 91% of people not responding doesn’t stack up for me.

 

That’s 91% of people in walkley bank that didn’t open a letter delivered to their house?

 

You can speculate on that as you wish.

 

As I’ve said before I’m not suggesting the information demonstrates people are for or against - I’m just citing it as something that might go against your argument that the silent majority is against felling - which you have based on chats with your friends and I have based on the response to the survey.

 

Like in in the two examples above which both have between 10-20% response rate and marginal for and against votes.

 

Now - as it doesn’t reinforce your own view - you are suggesting this survey was flawed because you believe people didn’t open the envelope and have then again just resorted to having a dig at me.

 

The information is there for you and others to form their own view on. It’s up to you.

[Cyclone]

So you are ignoring it, you can't bring yourself to criticise the council for deliberately manipulating the survey to minimise responses.

 

You're also ignoring the lies in the survey which may well have lead people to not respond...

 

I'm "suggesting" that the survey was flawed. Are you "denying" it? (Oh, and for what it's worth, the survey responses where they were made were overwhelmingly against, that means that the survey does actually support my point of view).

[Guest makapaka]

So you are ignoring it, you can't bring yourself to criticise the council for deliberately manipulating the survey to minimise responses.

 

You're also ignoring the lies in the survey which may well have lead people to not respond...

 

I'm "suggesting" that the survey was flawed. Are you "denying" it? (Oh, and for what it's worth, the survey responses where they were made were overwhelmingly against, that means that the survey does actually support my point of view).

 

Well not on Walkley Bank they weren't. More people approved than disapproved.

 

Why do I have to disprove or deny an unproven accusation to not be accused of bias?

 

However - to go with your theory that the silent majority opposes the felling in say Walkley Bank - we have to believe 91% of 986 households surveyed in Walkley Bank were tricked into not responding - either by lies contained within a survey or because they didn't bother to open the envelope - and that they would have been against had they not been tricked.

 

We then have to discount the fact that of those people that weren't tricked - more voted to approve the felling than disapprove.

 

You might then say that the people that approved the felling were tricked, but then we also have to question why only 3% disapproved.

 

You said that having spoken to your friends / colleagues this proved the silent majority were against the felling which you seem to think people should just accept as fact.

 

I'm not saying the survey proves anything undoubtedly - it certainly doesn't support a for or against view - it does seem to indicate indifference.

Edited September 18, 2018 by makapaka

[Cyclone]

There are sections of the pavement around some of the trees where the root growth is so pronounced that it has buckled the pavement. I walk down there most days, and I dont rely on Cyclone's silly Google Map images to see what I see.

 

But, hey, he or she has decided it's not an issue so I shall tell them not to worry.

 

Hey I missed this one.

 

Silly images of the street. That's weak isn't it. I put up some evidence and the best you can do is call actual photos of the street in question 'silly'.

I guess we've proven that you were exaggerating weren't you.

Which explains why you went quiet and only makapaka is left arguing about a point (having carefully forgotten the context of it of course).

 

---------- Post added 19-09-2018 at 11:13 ----------

 

That context being (to remind you makapaka) that bendix was claiming the opposite. The silent majority he claimed were in favour of tree removal.

I only claimed the opposite to make it clear how silly the claim is. And I acknowledged that it was anecdotal at the time. See posts 2147 and thereabouts.

[Hidrisc]

Council just annouced they are not going to fell the healthy trees on Western Rd because of Armistice...thats something they have done...though one would like to know they wont change their minds in a few years.

[dave_the_m]

Oddly enough a year ago SCC said that none of the 23 condemned Western Road trees could be saved because it would cost £300K and would require 5m-long pavement build-outs into road for each tree (along with the loss of 35 parking spaces). Now they've just checked again, and all but 3 trees (the dying ones) can be saved, with only 5 built-outs, and at no cost to SCC.