Council tree felling...

Watch the tree felling accelerate on the 4th of may, any bets?

Vote the green party in and I suspect not.

---------- Post added 19-04-2018 at 08:23 ----------

It's not really the civil contract that matters here since there is Statute Legislation, the CDM Regulations 2015 which overides all construction activity and requires Client and Contractor to put public health and safety, which the tree felling is detrimental to, first and foremost in all decisions.

Most things are potentially detrimental, the law requires reasonable precautions to be taken, not the abandonment of all potentially dangerous work.

We'd never build a building, dig a hole, lay a road or operate any heavy machinery if we couldn't do anything potentially hazardous.

There are a number of councils all across the UK terminating their Amey contracts early, so hopefully this will help SCC have the guts and backing to do the same.

By mutual consent

Councillor Gavin Elsey, cabinet member for waste and streetscene, said: “I would like to thank Amey for its commitment to providing services for the residents of Peterborough during the past five years.

From and FOI on health and safety :https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/grounds_for_non_termination_of_c

"On page 270 of the SCC redacted contract with Amey, it states that if a ‘Service Provider Default’ occurs, SCC can terminate the contract. Although the actual paragraphs are redacted which define what those defaults are, I have it on good authority that H&S law IS grounds for termination of contract (due to it being classed as a criminal offence)

This is further compounded by the fact that Amey's PFI contract with Birmingham City Council provides definitions of what constitutes a 'Major Method Statement Breach' thus:

- 'Limb D': where there is 'a breach of any law' (this can be demonstrated by the HSE's Notification of Contravention to Amey for 4 breaches of H&S law)

- 'Limb 'L': where there is 'an adverse effect on the health and safety of any persons' (as demonstrated by a child being hit by flying tree debris)

It is worth noting that the contract does NOT make provision for either of the above circumstances to be rectified (presumably because it is not possible to un-break the law"

Is the Sheffield PFI is the same as the Birmingham PFI terminating the contract may not be as easy as many people seem to think.

Vote the green party in and I suspect not.

 

---------- Post added 19-04-2018 at 08:23 ----------

 

Ignoring the fact that no Council meeting would be held until at least the week afterwards, you are aware it is mathematically impossible for the Green Party to obtain a majority in these elections, dont you?

Do they not have enough candidates standing?

I'm afraid I haven't looked at the list of candidates standing in wards outside my own.

Do they not have enough candidates standing?

I'm afraid I haven't looked at the list of candidates standing in wards outside my own.

They're putting up a candidate in every ward. However, there are 3 councillors per ward, and in a normal election cycle, only one councillor is up for re-election each year. (A councillor gets elected for 4 years, and over that period there are 3 elections plus one fallow year).

So even if every labour councillor up for election in May lost, SCC would still be a labour majority. You have to wait for another year or two before any possibility of change.

They're putting up a candidate in every ward. However, there are 3 councillors per ward, and in a normal election cycle, only one councillor is up for re-election each year. (A councillor gets elected for 4 years, and over that period there are 3 elections plus one fallow year).

 

So even if every labour councillor up for election in May lost, SCC would still be a labour majority. You have to wait for another year or two before any possibility of change.

Correct, given the Greens only have 4 and you need 43 to have a majority, given only a third of the seats are up for election each time and a third is 28...do the maths.

Both funnily enough. First decision..to fell tree or not? Felling healthy tree is environmental damage so shouldn't be done. Engineering solutions are environmentally friendly.

Second decision. The actual tree felling operation? Involves security/police/massing of persons..."dangerous" ..so according to CDM best avoided.

i dont think you know what youre talking about feel free to link to verfiable source for these examples

I started to have a look on the website today in my lunch hour.

 

I have to be careful saying that cos apparently it makes me a liar.....

 

It’s a big document and as people said - a lot of it has been redacted.

How did your lunch time research go then? Or are you still at it?

Anything you would care to share from your analysis of a document we can all read anyway and one that is heavily redacted?

I won't be waiting up

Do they not have enough candidates standing?

I'm afraid I haven't looked at the list of candidates standing in wards outside my own.

The unfortunate truth is even if the opposition took all 28 seats this only takes 20 off the Labour total so they would still hold a majority. Even worse than that the local Greens and Lib Dems are only really targetting modest gains topping out at 3 or 4 additional seats between them and with Labour taking back the East Ecclesfield UKIP seat there will hardly any difference when meetings start.

The best we can hope for is for Sheffielders to make the rest of the city much tighter so that Labour might listen to people's concerns about trees.

There are a number of councils all across the UK terminating their Amey contracts early, so hopefully this will help SCC have the guts and backing to do the same.

why does anyone ever take the green party seriously they are in effect no more than a protest or lobby group. noone takes them seriously as a political party except perhaps themselves and a few supporters.

admittedly last council election they got less votes than ukip but more seats ???

actually if you look at the numbers you can see there is a lot wrong in total with the outcome of the last local election. but if as many of us suspect the outcome had been decided before the election the actual numbers don't really matter.

there are in effect only two parties in sheffield the lib-dems and labour any vote not for one of those two parties is a either a wasted vote or at best a protest vote.

as ever i will be making a more formal protest vote by spoiling my paper as usual.

why does anyone ever take the green party seriously they are in effect no more than a protest or lobby group. noone takes them seriously as a political party except perhaps themselves and a few supporters.

 

admittedly last council election they got less votes than ukip but more seats ???

actually if you look at the numbers you can see there is a lot wrong in total with the outcome of the last local election. but if as many of us suspect the outcome had been decided before the election the actual numbers don't really matter.

 

there are in effect only two parties in sheffield the lib-dems and labour any vote not for one of those two parties is a either a wasted vote or at best a protest vote.

 

debatable - in some wards the greens got more votes than the lib dems last time round. So if the numbers held up a vote for lib-dem in those wards is a waste, because they can't win.