Sheffield trees: Council leader to stay on despite damning report

The leader of Sheffield City Council has said he will not step down despite the authority being heavily criticised as part of an independent review of the city's tree felling dispute.

Thousands of trees were felled as part of a major street improvement project, sparking public anger and protests.

Council leader Terry Fox said the report highlighted the "misjudgement, errors and mishandling".

However, he said rather than "hide away" he intended to "face up to this".

Meanwhile the authority's chief executive, Kate Josephs, said those impacted by the long-running dispute would be receiving personal apologies.

The report into the controversial saga, drawn up by former UN humanitarian chief Sir Mark Lowcock, found that Sheffield City Council's actions "amounted to a serious and sustained failure of strategic leadership" and said it had been "dishonest".

Labour councillor Mr Fox, who replaced Julie Dore as leader in 2021, was responsible for the Streets Ahead contract - the £2.2 billion PFI agreement at the heart of controversy - between 2015 and 2016.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield, he said: "The easiest thing today would be to just hide away and to not face up to this.

"This is a report that I commissioned, it has recommendations in there we are whole-heartedly going to endorse and we've got to move on."

Mr Fox said the local authority needed to "earn the trust again of the public".

His comments came after the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Sheffield, Shaffaq Mohammed, called for Mr Fox and Bryan Lodge, who was in charge of the trees programme at the time, to resign.

Mr Mohammed said: "When we are elected, we all sign a Code of Conduct and an oath to the people of Sheffield. I believe that this report indicates that they have broken that oath."

Ms Josephs, who joined the council in 2021, said the council was "determined" to learn from the report.

"The errors of judgement, the failings set out in this report are a very, very hard read regardless if you're relatively new to the council or you've been here a long time," she said.

"It's not just a generic apology, it's about really understanding that there's some very personal, specific apologies we need to make to individuals who experienced significant harm."

Despite the findings, she said nobody would face any action.

Mr Fox said Mr Lodge had offered his resignation from the council on Monday night but the offer was refused.

The previous council leader, Ms Dore, has yet to comment on Sir Mark's report.

Fierce protests broke out when felling work began, with more than 40 people arrested as campaigners battled against the council.

About 5,600 trees were removed and replaced between 2013 and 2018, the report found.

Sir Mark said the council and contractor Amey had failed to recognise people's love of trees and that replacing mature ones with saplings was seen as vandalism.

When protests began, instead of trying to find a compromise "the council's attitude hardened" and that behaviour in turn fuelled more protests, Sir Mark said.

A statement by Amey issued on Monday said: "We have all learned lessons from this difficult period and we apologise for not adequately predicting the strength of feeling around the tree replacement programme.

"We will work with Sheffield City Council and other stakeholders to take the learnings forward, as we build on recent progress with the Street Tree Partnership."

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