Sheffield City Wide Street Tree Preservation Order Update

Many of you will be aware that we have been up to something with government ministers. Sadly, this time round the scheme did not work, but not for want of trying.

We submitted a City wide Tree Preservation Order for all Sheffield Street Trees to Sajid Javid, Minister for Communities and Local Government and Michael Gove took up the case for us with his colleague,

They took a very positive attitude and leaned on SCC to respond to the plan although SCC, predictably, were not interested in discussion. Mr Javid asked us to keep this confidential while it was being discussed.

However after a long examination the Ministers’ advisors concluded that Highway law is stronger than tree law and they were unlikely to succeed in imposing the order. Both ministries recognise that something needs to be done and Michael Gove at DEFRA has not given up in his efforts to seek a solution.

Big credit is due to Robin Ridley and Rebecca Hammond who worked with me on the proposal, and Paul Selby who looked after the difficult work of liason with the ministries. Each action we take moves us forward and makes SCC’s position weaker.

– Chris Rust, STAG Co-Chair