How Sheffield treefelling scandal was unearthed by campaigners – Yorkshire Post Letters

WITH interest, I read Andy Kershaw’s film review of 
The Felling (The Yorkshire Post, March 12).

How The Felling charts inside story of Sheffield trees scandal as new film released reveals how campaigners defied council chiefs – Andy Kershaw

Mr Kershaw described the Sheffield tree campaign as ‘a two-year campaign’. In fact, the city-wide campaign was initiated in May 2015 and was established by Sheffield’s first citizen tree group – Save Our Rustlings Trees (SORT).

SORT requested to see the reasoning and evidence that decision-makers were reliant upon to justify their felling proposals.

SCC responded to enquiries and requests, with obfuscation, misrepresentation and deceit, using the Freedom of Information Act to withhold and deny access to information.

SORT collated and shared information, and raised, maintained and enhanced awareness and widespread support, from within and beyond Sheffield.

In just one month, the SORT petition had more than 5,307 signatures on paper and 4,693 online.

Two very detailed SORT communications were distributed by SCC, as ‘petition hand-outs’, to every councillor in the city.

Those documents detailed the basis for the campaign and the hopes, expectations and requests of campaigners.

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