richward66-blog

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Common Dolphins pay a visit - c. 4 miles off St Justinian, Pembrokeshire, August 2019

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A Death in the Family

We each encounter change and loss in different and personal ways. Bereavement brings with it profound change. The recent loss of my father was no exception and shook the family as, undoubtedly, the passing of loved ones has and will shake other families. It is the great inevitability.

Perhaps for us it was the sudden nature of that loss; an ‘unexpected expected’ event that ninety minutes of CPR couldn’t put back together again. The scatter of pieces, the actors in the ensuing family drama, gradually drew together. Picture them slowly filling a hospital side-room, a place for hasty arrivals and terrible news. The grandson speeding from Bristol wracked by uncertainty, the son at sea pensively awaiting updates, the daughter who held Dad’s hand as his presence ebbed away. Then there is the other grandson, the quiet giant shoved into A and E by his dad as his grandfather burst, cornflour blue pyjama bottoms first, from an ambulance, paramedics pumping purposefully. It was a heroic, yet ultimately futile, pursuit of that last spark of being. In support there are the wives and partners, strong but still teary-eyed. Most poignantly, there is the wife, mother, grandmother, so completely lost as sixty years of marriage draws to a close. 

As the worst was confirmed Mum clutched his grey cardigan. Before we left she tucked him in, a last tender gesture ‘to keep him from getting a chill’. I whispered “safe travels”, then turned for the door, one of dad’s forlorn slippers in hand, the other lost who knows where between armchair and emergency room.

A home entered a new state, shifting from Challenge TV and Sky Sports News to a repository of blooms and condolences: A forum for measured pragmatism amidst remembrances. 

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Saving the Chelsea Road Huntingdon Elm, Nether Edge, Sheffield

Anonymity, Expertise and an Iconic Elm Tree Sometimes it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees. That’s when we really need the help of expert inputs. Yes, despite the recent referendum campaign assertions, we really do need experts; People who have proven depth of knowledge and an applied understanding that can bring clarity and aid decision-making. An expert should, of course, be impartial, or at least possessed of the ethical awareness to declare an interest. A recent 'expert' contributor on the Chelsea Road elm tree debate states in their letter to the Sheffield Telegraph (21/72016) that s/he is a professional arboriculturalist. This is a profession that, as many will know, is dedicated to tree care and management. The correspondent goes on to offer further wisdom and insight that we might expect from a highways engineer, a plant epidemiologist, a mycologist, a geneticist, a lepidopterist, a statistician, a conservation biologist and a financial accountant. Wow, truly a ‘renaissance’ woman/man. What is difficult to understand is how the anonymous expert’s unevidenced speculation, largely disparaging of the case for saving the Chelsea Road elm, can be published without the balance of a right of reply from other experts. Those might be the sort of experts at, to name a trio, The Woodland Trust, The Sheffield Wildlife Trust and Butterfly Conservation. Such known experts might counter, for example, the unevidenced assertion that the White Letter Hairstreak butterfly is ‘…not that rare’ with the evidenced reliable view that it is a species in serious decline (an estimated 97% population decline in the last 40 years - Sheffield Wildlife Trust). More background information is helpfully provided at: http://www.wildsheffield.com/sites/default/files/20160120_wildlife_trust_letter_to_scc_and_amey_about_elm_tree.pdf The main argument advanced by our anonymous expert seems to be that poorly conducted work to retain the elm tree may unintentionally damage the tree, leading to infection and death and a wasted investment. This bizarre take on risk management seems then to be a central plank for an argument in favour of felling this beautiful and environmentally valuable tree. Is anyone sensing a less than virtuous circle in the logic? It’s not that long since the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry report. If, as a nation, we have learnt anything from that inquiry it is probably that we really don’t need dodgy dossiers pulled together to support biased ‘expert’ assertions that promote the desired solution of authoritarians. Can we trust self-professed impartiality (“I have no opinion either way…”) when a correspondent then makes a very selective case for a particular and frankly partisan outcome? Given the apparently low success rate of evidence driven processes, such as the Sheffield City Council's Council's recent overruling of many recommendations from its own Independent Tree Panel (see also http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/sheffield-council-making-a-mockery-of-independent-tree-advice-campaigners-claim-1-8037340) it’s difficult to see beyond the impression that decisions are not actually being evidence driven at all. So maybe we don’t need experts and we can spend a short-sighted future trying to breathe the money we’ve saved? Or maybe we need to be told who self proclaimed 'experts' making contentious claims in the local press really are?

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Another systematically composed piece of expert input that shines no doubt unwelcome light on all sorts of problems with Sheffield City Council’s ‘strategy’.  

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Professor Ian Rotherham calls it correctly. His text and the subsequent comments are very informative. If only Sheffield City Council were truly interested in dialogue. A vast array of expertise is just an olive branch away from their grasp...

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...oh hang on, one was included in error and at least two more claim not to agree with everything in the ill-judged missive! The Sheffield tree campaigns are not about politics, no matter how hard party political activists try to portray that angle. A socially divisive and utterly disreputable effort has been made to portray honest and highly effective campaigners from across the city as sophisticated and uncaring nimbys. It's a crude, unworthy and unhelpful contribution to the debate. What it does do oh so very well though is to betray the whiff of authoritarians at bay.

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Coverage of the Sheffield Chainsaw Massacre in the backyard of the PFI contractor's parent company...

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Another great blog from Rob McBride helpds to shine light on the dire situation faced by Sheffielders.

The Street Trees of Sheffield - Pip Howard / Rob McBride

A Street Tree is the most extraordinary thing in any city. Trees counter pollution both in the air and in the soil. Trees alleviate flooding risks and help counter extreme drought. Trees help recovering patients, help those in education to study better and increase the health and well-being for all who encounter them. Trees are mainly made from Carbon, extracting it from the air NOT from the soil. 

A Street Tree is also immense. The square metre of its base belies the fact that a fully mature tree in leaf can have a surface area of up to 200 Hectares (almost 500 acres). For Sheffield this means that only 182 of its mature trees is equivalent to the size of the city. How big could Sheffield really be? Sadly it is diminishing in size rapidly. Sheffield was famous for its street trees. It is now infamous for its street trees. The landscape of Sheffield has changed completely, this green city is gone and Wikipedia have not yet updated this sad fact.

This is not a treehugger vs developer situation, it is neither political. It is quite simply an abuse of power by those elected to serve. A lack of consultation as is legally required under both UK and European law has been ignored. A substitute system, without precedence, has been introduced. A system which usurps the publics’ rights, undermines land management and landscape industries could ultimately be copied elsewhere. It is the name Sheffield, not Trump, that will become the verb to describe ‘wanton environmental damage by government for the pocket of multinational business’.

Trees are awesome, we know little about them, but everything we find out (and we are finding out much on a daily basis), is beneficial to we as humans.

One fact is disturbing; we are struggling to ensure the survival into maturity of newly planted street trees. Estimates range from 60 – 80% of newly planted street trees will never make it! We have to question any who simply state ‘we are planting replacements’.

The situation in Sheffield is gaining increasing attention from around the world. The protest is growing. And for the people of Sheffield this is a two edged sword. Protest costs money, lots of money! And it is the local taxpayer who ultimately pays, paying for a lack of due process by those who have chosen to have power rather than serve.

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Well, the mess of the PFI contract - Moray Simpson arboricultural consultant Guest Blog

Been asked to post this post on its own, so it can be shared.

“Want to share this comment below, which i have just posted on the arboricultural forum UKTC as arbs were commenting on this situation and it was all a bit one sided. Anyway, sorry about the typos, as i rattled this off on my phone and had to do so whilst the red mist was descending due to other comments:

Well, the mess of the PFI contract resulting in three and half thousand street trees felled over very recent times,  with the contract written in such a way that up to 75% of Sheffield’s street trees could be felled by the PFI contractor over the next twenty years and the Council’s intransigence in not listening to the people who they represent has resulted in a concerted campaign by the people of Sheffield.

Yesterday, in just less than 12 hours, five thousand pounds was raised to enable the felling of street trees in Sheffield debacle to go to a judicial review. Today, a judge in London granted interim relief (think thats the term) and has halted the Sheffield Chainsaw massacre. The council now has two days to appeal this judicial decision.

Hundreds of people are contributing their own money to this cause as they care about their street trees. Its so heartening to see so many people becoming engaged in saving their street trees. This bolsters what John Flanagan’s research found.

Sheffield does not have a tree strategy and a cost benefit analysis of the of the myriad of benefits that Sheffield’s street trees provide versus the costs of repairing grey infrastructure damage has not been undertaken. Neither has an assessment of the lost ecosystem services to the people of Sheffield been carried out.

The peope involved in this campaign have a good understanding of all these issues and are not trying to prevent sensible management of their street tree population, but they are trying to prevent the wholesale loss of mature street trees in such a short space of time and the knock-on disbenefits that this will result in.

They want to see engineering solutions used to remediate minor pavement and kerb damage from trees, rather than seeing mature trees being felled because of minor damage, where the use of engineering solutions such as flexible paving could be used. However, as these options have not been included in the PFI contract, it is understandable that the PFI contractor is felling so many trees that are causing minor damage that can be remediated, as they make money from the felling, the replanting and don’t lose money having to tarmac around the trees now and again within the twenty year contract lifespan. They can make money this way. Many coumcils throughout Britain put up with the cost of having to remediate root damage to footways, as they can see the value of mature trees far outweighs the cost of having to re-tarmac now and again.

Whilst many cities around the world are recognising the significant benefits that mature trees bring to living in cities, by valuing these benefits, and consequently managing their tree populations holistically and sustainably, Sheffield has given over the management of street trees to a PFI contractor, which appears to not be interested in the people of Sheffield or the sustainable management of their street trees, and which is more interested in its profit margins, as any business would be.

BTW, we are not knocking Sheffield as you alluded to in your post, but we are objecting to the way the council has handled this and also the handing over of the management, including the decision on which trees are felled to a private company, which has resulted in the people of Sheffield not having a say in how their street tree population is managed. The Sheffield street tree population is owned by the people of Sheffield and the council are just custodians of these trees. That is why so many people have actively become involved in this campaign.

Regards

Moray

Btw, i and hundreds of other people have chipped in for the crowd funding for the judicial review, because the control of council tree populations could be passed to private contractors anywhere in Britain, against the will of the people, with profit coming before sustainable management”.

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Thanks to my old friend Tony O for knocking up a cartoon in double quick time, despite being a very very busy man. 

Councillor Terry ‘Chopper’ Fox: “Let me be absolutely clear, this is a programme of protection, not destruction. We are investing in the future of Sheffield’s trees.”