sheffield trees

[WesD]

3 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

I'm flabbergasted.

Why?

[Gary Prentice]

10 hours ago, Mark J said:

There's no sound arboricultural reason to fell that many trees.  However the council have got themselves in a bind because they've signed a contract that stipulates that the'yll have 17500 trees felled. 

You know that there's no arboricultural reason from personal knowledge or from the hype? Just playing devil's advocate like.

 

There was an article written by a fellow in Sheffield a couple of years back in one of the journals or magazines. I know statistics can be manipulated to illustrate any particular agenda, but he illustrated the position in Sheffield quite well. Because of cutbacks over the last twenty years Sheffield reacted to complaints and problems and in the absence of any management policy didn't keep up with renewal planting, turning over the street tree stock effectively. 

The PFI was probably seen as an opportunity to address this but is being carried out initially over a very short period. Bill Andersons figures demonstrated that over the total period of the preceding years and the PFI, the replacement planting percentage of the entire population was actually quite low - it's just being done over a short period. 

 

If you stand back and think that Sheffield are renewing 50% of the stock over twenty five years, it seems a lot. If you consider that they have neglected to renew their tree stock for the last ten years, or twenty, the percentages then start to seem more reasonable.

 

I don't dispute that it's a massive PR failure and has been atrociously portrayed in the media, but for the purpose of managing the tree population, I don't think that it's anywhere near what is being portrayed. 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

13 hours ago, WesD said:

learn to accept that in this none perfect world and save yourself some time, effort and energy. 

It's an inherently, systemically, irreversibly flawed concept Wes.  Using the "we can't change it because it's 'contracted'" cop out is just that, a cop out (by the people responsible for local government) and a denial to accept that we make mistakes.  When mistakes are made, they should be taken at face value, analysed and learnt from.  Not buried, excused and blindly continued with.  

 

This is a colossal balls up by the person(s) responsible for establishing the concept and then issuing the ITT.

 

Yes, contractors will bid for contracts and expect to fulfil the terms of the contract and be paid what's due.  But (on this scale) they also have corporate moral, environmental and shareholder responsibilities to consider.  The adverse PR that this is attracting will be doing the company image no good at all.  

 

The council should recognise it's error, the senior management at Amey should have foreseen the complications and between them, it should have been changed well before it got to this stage.

 

Somebody needs to have the moral courage to say STOP.  Let's rethink this.

 

I'm by no means a 'career protester' and there may be some itinerant, anarchists in the mix that are just using this as the protest of choice for this week, but that's not the main stay of the group from what I can see.  This is regular, ordinary people kicking off about scandalously inept and arrogant council destruction of an invaluable public asset.

 

The boys and girls on the tools are getting a tough time and that's not entirely fair but where are the big kahoona's in all this?

 

Where are the Tree Council, the NT, the FC, the AA?  Way too quiet.  Where is Corbyn?  Where is Sue Hayman?  Gove has put Corbyn to shame on this one. 

 

Stop protesting and the big kahoona's quietly get paid and move on to the next project...  It's wrong, everyone can see it's wrong.  

 

 

(typing at the same time Gary...  Must get to work!!)

 

Edited March 23, 2018 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[Mark J]

29 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

You know that there's no arboricultural reason from personal knowledge or from the hype? Just playing devil's advocate like.

 

There was an article written by a fellow in Sheffield a couple of years back in one of the journals or magazines. I know statistics can be manipulated to illustrate any particular agenda, but he illustrated the position in Sheffield quite well. Because of cutbacks over the last twenty years Sheffield reacted to complaints and problems and in the absence of any management policy didn't keep up with renewal planting, turning over the street tree stock effectively. 

The PFI was probably seen as an opportunity to address this but is being carried out initially over a very short period. Bill Andersons figures demonstrated that over the total period of the preceding years and the PFI, the replacement planting percentage of the entire population was actually quite low - it's just being done over a short period. 

 

If you stand back and think that Sheffield are renewing 50% of the stock over twenty five years, it seems a lot. If you consider that they have neglected to renew their tree stock for the last ten years, or twenty, the percentages then start to seem more reasonable.

 

I don't dispute that it's a massive PR failure and has been atrociously portrayed in the media, but for the purpose of managing the tree population, I don't think that it's anywhere near what is being portrayed. 

When I was down there, there seemed to be haphazard selcetion criteria for which trees they were felling.  Many of the trees could be managed for well over 40+ years.  I do have a level 5 Arb qualification and PTI etc, so have a vague idea what I'm on about.

[WesD]

7 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

It's an inherently, systemically, irreversibly flawed concept Wes.  Using the "we can't change it because it's 'contracted'" cop out is just that, a cop out (by the people responsible for local government) and a denial to accept that we make mistakes.  When mistakes are made, they should be taken at face value, analysed and learnt from.  Not buried, excused and blindly continued with.  

 

This is a colossal balls up by the person(s) responsible for establishing the concept and then issuing the ITT.

 

Yes, contractors will bid for contracts and expect to fulfil the terms of the contract and be paid what's due.  But (on this scale) they also have corporate moral, environmental and shareholder responsibilities to consider.  The adverse PR that this is attracting will be doing the company image no good at all.  

 

The council should recognise it's error, the senior management at Amey should have foreseen the complications and between them, it should have been changed well before it got to this stage.

 

Somebody needs to have the moral courage to say STOP.  Let's rethink this.

 

I'm by no means a 'career protester' and there may be some itinerant, anarchists in the mix that are just using this as the protest of choice for this week, but that's not the main stay of the group from what I can see.  This is regular, ordinary people kicking off about scandalously inept and arrogant council destruction of an invaluable public asset.

 

The boys and girls on the tools are getting a tough time and that's not entirely fair but where are the big kahoona's in all this?

 

Where are the Tree Council, the NT, the FC, the AA?  Way too quiet.  Where is Corbyn?  Where is Sue Hayman?  Gove has put Corbyn to shame on this one. 

 

Stop protesting and the big kahoona's quietly get paid and move on to the next project...  It's wrong, everyone can see it's wrong.  

 

 

(typing at the same time Gary...  Must get to work!!)

 

Agree with everything from paragraph 2 down. 

 

Will the the work stop or continue in Sheffield in your opinion?

 

Its easy for the guy to come on here and paint a bad picture but the very fact that they are rallying around promoting protests is leading to people getting hurt and arrested not the work being done. 

 

So so he’s happy to take the moral high ground but not take responsibility for arrests/injuries??? Hmmmm

 

 

[WesD]

37 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

I don't dispute that it's a massive PR failure and has been atrociously portrayed in the media, but for the purpose of managing the tree population, I don't think that it's anywhere near what is being portrayed. 

+1

[Gary Prentice]

30 minutes ago, Mark J said:

When I was down there, there seemed to be haphazard selcetion criteria for which trees they were felling.  Many of the trees could be managed for well over 40+ years.  I do have a level 5 Arb qualification and PTI etc, so have a vague idea what I'm on about.

And I’ve over thirty years in Arb, PTI and was halfway through the L6 before being diagnosed with cancer.

So I’ve also been round the block a few times.

 

[Mark J]

26 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

And I’ve over thirty years in Arb, PTI and was halfway through the L6 before being diagnosed with cancer.

So I’ve also been round the block a few times.

 

I don't doubt for a minute that you have.  I just feel that tree stock should be managed differently.  Sadly there aren't the funds to do so. 

 

I hope you're on the mend/mended.

Edited March 23, 2018 by Mark J

[eggsarascal]

10 hours ago, WesD said:

Why?

Quite simply because I don't think people should just sit back and let things go on if they feel passionate about the situation.

 

If these people can get their voices heard they may be able to put a stop to what they view has something very important to them.

 

Each to their own, mind.

[Gary Prentice]

1 hour ago, Mark J said:

I don't doubt for a minute that you have.  I just feel that tree stock should be managed differently.  Sadly there aren't the funds to do so. 

 

I hope you're on the mend/mended.

Sorry if my reply came across as arsey   The tree stock should have been effectively managed over the last two decades. All that is going on now is as a result of this along with a (poor) attempt to play catch up and do a load of tree replacements over a short period of time.

 

I don't know how, within the confines of the PFI, the tree stock can be managed differently and imagine that Ameys targets are more about efficiency and profit than anything else. But, it's a business venture so is it realistic to expect anything less?

 

There may be some good aspects of the farce that it's rapidly become, raising the importance of urban trees generally and encouraging other LAs to very carefully look at how they are and will manage their own stocks. 

 

Unfortunately on the health front, things have taken a worrying reversal this week. I'll post in that thread later..