Nanny's chums from Sheffield council have been at war with local residents for some time now, over the council's decision to fell hundreds of trees.
Despite the objection of local residents, the council is of the view that the trees represent a health and safety hazard!
Back in November last year Sheffield City Council contractors began removing eight trees in Rustlings Road at 05:00 GMT on 17 November.
In a manner akin to the Gestapo, doors were knocked on and people were woken up and asked to move their cars so work could begin. Three people were arrested when they, not unreasonably, complained.
Move forward to the present day, and the council continue to arrest people who try to oppose the tree cutting. ITV reports that seven people were arrested yesterday.
However, Nanny is not going to change her plans and issued a somewhat irritated statement (akin to an angry headmistress talking down to her charges):
"The Council is very disappointed that this disruption of lawful highway work is continuing. We have had the programme endorsed by the Courts following legal action by the protest group but the disruption continues to cause unnecessary delay. This delay and disruption is likely to cost the Council Taxpayers of Sheffield a significant amount of money.Methinks there is more to this than admitted to by Nanny.
Whilst we appreciate that some people have strong views about the city’s trees, we must continue with works under the Streets Ahead contract whilst ensuring the safety of site operatives and the general public remain paramount at all times. In addition, the majority of residents on Chippinghouse Road did not disagree with our proposals for tree works on their road.
We want to reassure the people of Sheffield that every tree being removed as part of the Streets Ahead programme will be replaced on a one for one basis and ultimately, by the end of the contract, there will be more street trees in Sheffield than before the contract commenced in 2012.”
Hang on a minute, STAG suggest that the real issue is profit for a third party company:
"Previously, the Council had built up 30 years of agreements on street trees, based on consultation with communities. These agreements were a commitment to the people of Sheffield – after all, they are our trees.
When in 2012 the street management was outsourced to Amey, these agreements were lost or ignored. Amey have a clear profit motive – if they blitz the city’s trees in the first 5 years of their 25-year contract, they can spend the next 20 years with much lower maintenance costs."Surely not?!!!
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Unfortunately the truth about Sheffield City Councils' contract with Amey is probably more corrupt than anyone had imagined. It is becoming increasingly clear that the contsct (no-one is allowed to know the precise details)probably agrees that Amey will cut down and replace a quota of healthy trees (10,000 seems to be the figure) which is far more costly to Sheffield than if they had agreed to maintain 10,000 healthy trees. It's like agreeing, before you sit in the dentists chair, to have 10 healthy teeth taken out and replaced, when all you need is one extraction, a couple of fillings and a scale-and-polish! Very few people want the trees to be cut down, but we are paying through the nose for it in interest to the bankers who are servicing the loan SCC have taken out to pay Amey for this destruction. If it was a dentist it would be called mal-practice.
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