Yesterday saw the unveiling of this plaque at Sheffield Town Hall. CEO Kate Josephs opened the proceedings.
She said, “It’s my great pleasure to be here this afternoon. Thank you very much, all of you, for being here today. We’re gathered to mark the unveiling of a very special plaque to commemorate the street tree campaign. This is not a celebration in the usual sense. It’s a moment to pause, to reflect and to acknowledge a really difficult chapter in the city’s recent history. One that caused real hurt, division, and a loss of trust for many people, for too many people. The Lowcock Review was an important moment for this council and for the city. It challenged Sheffield City Council to reflect on what had happened and on how we work with the communities we are here to serve. In the years since, we have worked hard to rebuild trust with the people of Sheffield. That work will continue, and we will never take that trust for granted. This plaque reflects a significant moment in the history of the Street Tree campaign. It recognises the enormous contribution of residents, campaigners, and community partners who cared deeply about their streets, about their trees, and about their city, and who were prepared to speak up, often at personal cost. And we owe a debt of thanks to them all.
It also serves as a reminder of how important it is that public institutions work hard to listen carefully to the communities they serve. We also need to thank the Independent Task and Finish Group, many of whom are here today, who worked together to agree the design and wording of the plaque. They have given many hours of their time, and we are really, really grateful for their commitment and generosity that they’ve shown in helping bring this to completion. So to help us mark this moment, I’m really grateful to welcome two people whose work has helped to ensure that the wider story of trees, place, and people continues to be heard and understood. In a moment, I’ll hand over to James Mitcheson, who is the editor of the Yorkshire Post. Under James’ leadership, the paper has given space to difficult conversations, to scrutiny, and to community voices across Yorkshire. James will say a few words about why this story matters, not just for Sheffield, but far beyond. And then I’ll also be handing over, and I’m very pleased to welcome Rob McBride, known to many of you as a Tree Hunter and an ambassador for the Tree of the Year awards. Rob has spent years celebrating trees not simply as a feature of our landscape but as living witnesses to our shared history, identity, and values. Together, they’ll help us reflect on why this plaque matters as an act of recognition, a gesture of respect and commitment to learning from the past so that we do better in the future. The writer Hal Borland said, “If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.” I think it’s fair to say that our city is a better place today and for the future as a result of the incredible number and variety of trees that we share our home with, and as a result of the strength and the patience of so many citizens of Sheffield that we acknowledge here today and in perpetuity through this plaque. “
The next speaker was James Mitchinson, Editor of the Yorkshire Post, whose articles were vital in exposing the truth about the tree scandal.
He said, “First of all, I want to thank you for inviting me to give this address today. When the invitation arrived in my inbox, I wrote back. I think you’ve written to the wrong James, I’m afraid. I said, there are a great many people more suitable than I who’ve sacrificed far more and toiled far harder than I have in this skirmish who are surely better placed to speak, I said. Alas, I was told it was not a mistake. So before I begin, I want to thank you for putting me up here. It’s an honour, and it’s a privilege. And I want to dedicate what I say next to the incredible people who put their lives on hold, their liberty at risk, and their sanity through a years long mangle of corruption that, without your courage, would have prevailed. Honestly, thank you. And yet, I would rather not be here. I would rather you all weren’t here either. At least not for the reasons we’re gathered. But here we are, 14 years after the people inside this building, people charged with taking care of Sheffield, struck a two billion pound deal with the contractor, the deeply flawed terms of which led to one of the city’s darkest hours, putting a forest of 17,500 majestic and mature street trees in the vexed crosshairs of the chainsaws, wielded by people who simply didn’t care.
Fortunately, though, there were people living in this city who did and do still care.
9th of February 2017, my secretary, Jane, took a call. She transcribed the conversation and emailed it to me, adding, “The lady was really articulate and intelligent, but I could tell she was really upset. She seemed genuine.” That caller had said this, “I wish to remain anonymous. I’m scared, but I saw a tweet from James about the tree felling in Sheffield, and I want him to know how worried we all are about it. There is little to no media coverage of what’s happening. And as a result, the full extent of the conduct of Sheffield Council and its deceit is going unchallenged. With hindsight, that was more than a fair criticism. We simply weren’t doing enough. I would turn on the radio and hear false equivalents being wheeled out, masquerading as journalism. Each side was being given a fair chance to have their say, but only one side was acting in good faith. I didn’t know that then. It’s perhaps easy and obvious now to say that, of course, the campaigners were right and of course the council was wrong. But at the time, the prevailing narrative was different. An expensive smear campaign was at full tilt. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were being spent on trying to buy a new truth. Counsellors and officials, many of whom have sauntered off into the shadows, are long gone. People who, by the way, must be held accountable if we are to stand any chance at all.
They’re bringing full and proper closure to this matter. They were portraying campaigners as tree-hugging crackpots with nothing better to do than meddle in their expensive public realm improvement project. One that we were repeatedly told was for the good of the city. Lies, damn lies, and statistics were being shown to me and to others to illustrate that these people, you people, were nothing but ill-informed busy bodies. I kept going back to that call that Jane received. She was articulate. She was intelligent. She was upset. She was genuine. James, I knew it. I knew I needed to listen more carefully, observe more diligently, and so I got to know a few of you. As I did look more carefully and listened more intently, I saw men and women investing hours and hours of their own time, days, weeks, months, and in the end, years in pursuit of truth. Detectives and journalists in your own right, working with and alongside my irreplaceable colleague Chris Burn, you formed a formidable team.
You formed a formidable team. A battalion is perhaps a better description because you went to war with Goliath, and in the end, David won.
But you were up against it. Boy, were you up against it. The full might of the establishment. Bouncers recruited to manhandle you off the streets. Police deployed as tactical reinforcement. Cars towed in the dead of night to make way for trees to fall. I will not repeat what I shouted when word reached me that two women in their 70s, Jenny and Freda, had been arrested. Nick Clegg was right. It was like something out of Putin’s Russia. And since he said that, we’ve all been reminded of that which Putin’s Russia is capable of. The then Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, who having come to Sheffield to see for himself what was going on, described it as draconian and bonkers. It was. 41 people were arrested. One for tooting on a child’s toy horn.
Bonkers doesn’t get close when you think about it. And yet you did not relent. You did not give up. Bullied, intimidated, harassed, belittled, and besmirched by people who were later described as deluded. Even when you were accused of spiking tea with poison. That one made international headlines, by the way. New York Times, no less, as well as booby-trapping trees and many, many other reputationally harmful conspiracies. You kept going, and you went on to win one of the most hard-fought and successful environmental campaigns ever waged.
In the end, it was not your reputations that were left in tatters, but those of this council and the city itself. To the credit of Kate Josephs and Tom Hunt at the time, they saw that too. And to the surprise of us all, accustomed to obfuscations, lies, hubris, and denials, they apologised so sincerely and so profusely that it could not be interpreted as disingenuous. It was four pages of what I thought, to the credit of the new leadership, was sincere remorse and regret. Too late, yes. Too little, no. To dwell in the mire of discord in perpetuity is not healthy. Without those words, I suspect we wouldn’t be here today marking this occasion. They’ve helped the city to begin the process of healing the rift between the people and the city’s leaders. One of those people I called yesterday. A familiar voice answered. “Hello, James. I still have your number saved even after all these years,” said the friendly voice, and I smiled. “Years in which protest proved justified. Direct action, the route of last resort, was proven just. Tree-hugging crackpots, it turned out, were the good guys all along.
I am proud to call you my friends, and I’m proud to call myself a treehugging crackpot.
But seriously, what you achieved is nothing short of remarkable. You turned around a tanker of insincerity, a drift in your city, and saved 11,000 trees that were in its path, destined for inevitable destruction. The plaque placed today will forever remind us of what happens when democratic power is abused. It should also be a starter of infinite conversations about the heroes who saved Sheffield’s trees. You’ve left an indelible mark of righteousness on Sheffield. Your honesty and your integrity are now hallmarks branded into the metal of the steel city forever. You are the best of it. Thank you.
Finally, Tree Hunter Rob McBride shared his thoughts.
Jaq Pixelwitch wrote on Facebook, “It was an emotional day with an incredibly moving speech from James Mitchinson, Editor of The Yorkshire Post, who fully supported the campaign during the protests, despite Sheffield City Council’s lies, spin and slander to every other media outlet. The subsequent independent street tree inquiry into the actions of the council and police by Sir Mark Lowcock resulted in The Lowcock Report, published on 6 March 2023 (https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/…/independent-inquiry-into). It absolutely vindicated the actions by protesters and found many serious breaches of conduct by South Yorkshire Police and the council, resulting in a public apology to the citizens that they hounded, had physically assaulted, arrested, fined, taken to court. There was a huge physical and psychological toll too, which still goes largely unseen – PTSD and heart problems – from the stress inflicted. Most of the councillors and officers involved walked away and have never been held to account. They tried to ruin residents’ lives in order to fulfil a poorly understood PFI contract. Shame on them. I hope it haunts them for the rest of their lives. They felled 6,000 healthy mature street trees. The protesters saved 12,5000.
Yesterday was the final cherry on the cake of victory.”
Some readers may not know the relevance of the Squirrel, Bunny and Gecko on the plaque. At the height of the dispute, a Squirrel was an activist willing to climb up a tree to prevent the workers from cutting it down. A Bunny was someone who would hop over the Heras Fencing to sit under the tree, again stopping the chainsaws in their tracks. The Geckos were people who would stand, with permission, on private property, or against a wall to prevent the Amey workman from constructing fencing around a tree and thus prevent or delay the felling. This sometimes resulted in physical injuries to protesters as the violent behaviour of the bouncers employed to keep the felling sites clear of protesters reached totally unacceptable levels.
Although the protests are finished and the Council now has a much more progressive street tree policy, the madness of the contracts with corporations like Amey and Veolia continues. Recently, Sheffielders have been up in arms about the state of our roads, which are covered in potholes. Our extremely wet winter was partly to blame, but we must also look at the quality of Amey’s work, especially when repairs only last a matter of days. Cllr Angela Argenzio, leader of the Green Councillor Group, told me at the unveiling that the Amey contract does not run out until 2036. And even then, it will need to be “remortgaged”, so we will keep paying until 2056. Handing over Council services to these corporations was a massive mistake from former Councillors that we will still be paying for long after I am in my grave.
Further information
If you don’t know the full story of the Sheffield tree campaign, watch it all here:
Yorkshire Post
BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy8kynzy91o
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield_tree_felling_protests
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