Company feared £3m council penalty if it didn't keep chopping down Sheffield trees

Amey produced a calculation which worked out it could face penalties of over £3m a year if work was not continued.

The £2.2bn Streets Ahead highways improvement contract signed between the two parties in 2012 included a target of felling 17,500 trees and replacing them with saplings, with one-third of the work front-loaded for the first five years - a stage known as the Core Investment Period (CIP).

Sir Mark’s inquiry into the saga - which found the council had misled the public and courts about its strategy - has also revealed the behind-the-scenes pressure the council was placing on Amey to continue the work in the face of increasing protests against what was happening.

The inquiry said that in 2017, the council “increased pressure on Amey to keep the tree replacement programme on track”.

In April 2017 an internal council email from Paul Billington, the council environment officer overseeing the programme, said the council intended to “hit Amey hard for costs and potential contract breaches” if they did not participate in efforts to gain a court injunction against protesters.

In October 2017 council head of highways Steve Robinson wrote to Amey to warn them that performance requirement penalties could be imposed from the start of 2018.

He said: “Leaving trees behind that are identified and agreed for felling is very undesirable for all of us.”

Amey told the inquiry that the council “were threatening to impose Performance Adjustments against us, if we did not continue with tree removal”.

The company then calculated what the deductions could potentially amount to. It estimated “that possible deductions could be around £3.043 million annually, with a likelihood to increase further if the CIP works were further delayed”.

Later in October 2017, Mr Billington wrote to Amey saying “given our respective contractual responsibilities (especially as set out in Clause 19) I need to ask that you consider a 50 per cent contribution to our latest legal costs”.

The following month Mr Billington, who has since left the council, wrote to Amey by email following a daily progress update as demonstrators continued to frustrate felling attempts.

He told the company’s representatives: “You are losing the battle and we believe that Amey has options to sort this… To be blunt - the council is very frustrated at the current policy of ‘turn up and pack up’.”

Sir Mark’s inquiry report said: “The overall impact of this pressure was to communicate to Amey that the Council was determined to complete the tree replacement programme and no flexibility was on offer.

“Amey responded by introducing passive stewarding, evidence gathering, higher fencing and supporting the injunction both financially and through their actions on the streets.”

In early 2018, controversy around the felling programme gained international attention as dozens of police officers and private security guards attended operations on a daily basis and multiple protesters were arrested.

The work was put on hold in March 2018 in the face of both increasing demonstrations and widespread political condemnation.

Earlier this week, Sheffield Council leader Terry Fox said he “absolutely” accepted all the findings of the inquiry.