Council tree felling...

[Cyclone 10]

40 minutes ago, lil-minx92 said:

I know but they have a habit of lying & denying even in the face of facts

Which would be great.  They could then claim that they weren't going to jail even as they were lead away in cuffs.  I'd laugh so hard.

[Robin-H 11]

18 hours ago, dave_the_m said:

The Council has just published a report for Cabinet concerning the 309 street trees that remained to be felled during the Core Period of the Amey contract, at the time a moratorium on felling started back in March 2018.

Of these, 218 have been investigated so far, and of those, 191 can be retained with standard solutions, 26 with bespoke solutions, and 1 can't be fixed.

These are all trees that SCC told the High Court (with a straight face) were to felled as a last resort as they couldn't be saved.

 

I wonder how many of the thousands and thousands of street trees that were felled could have been saved.

 

If the percentages are anything like this small sample then it would have been a lot..

 

Vindication for the people arguing this from the beginning, but small solace in the face of what has been unnecessary lost. 

[PeteM01 10]

1 hour ago, Robin-H said:

I wonder how many of the thousands and thousands of street trees that were felled could have been saved.

 

If the percentages are anything like this small sample then it would have been a lot..

 

Vindication for the people arguing this from the beginning, but small solace in the face of what has been unnecessary lost. 

I would be interested to know what percentage of the felled trees have been replaced - do you have this figure?

[dave_the_m 61]

6 minutes ago, PeteM01 said:

I would be interested to know what percentage of the felled trees have been replaced - do you have this figure?

They're supposed to do a 1-1 replacement with saplings, but not necessarily at the same location. They told the High Court that all the saplings have a circumference on their trunk of 14-16cm - it turns out the contract specified 12-16cm, and it further transpires that they have been routinely going below 12cm. Many of these saplings have been vandalised or didn't survive last summer's drought.

[PeteM01 10]

1 hour ago, dave_the_m said:

They're supposed to do a 1-1 replacement with saplings, but not necessarily at the same location. They told the High Court that all the saplings have a circumference on their trunk of 14-16cm - it turns out the contract specified 12-16cm, and it further transpires that they have been routinely going below 12cm. Many of these saplings have been vandalised or didn't survive last summer's drought.

Less than 12cm - that sounds about right for some near us in Crookes. Many were vandalised but were replanted and seem to have to have survived.

[c00kie 10]

2 hours ago, dave_the_m said:

They're supposed to do a 1-1 replacement with saplings, but not necessarily at the same location. They told the High Court that all the saplings have a circumference on their trunk of 14-16cm - it turns out the contract specified 12-16cm, and it further transpires that they have been routinely going below 12cm. Many of these saplings have been vandalised or didn't survive last summer's drought.

The consequence of this policy is that some areas of Sheffield have had significant reductions in the number of street trees.  Firth Park ward, for instance, has had a net reduction of 160 trees; Burngreave ward 50 trees.

[Cyclone 10]

5 hours ago, PeteM01 said:

I would be interested to know what percentage of the felled trees have been replaced - do you have this figure?

I can tell you how many were replaced with trees that have now grown to be just as large.  None.

Some of the trees on my street were replaced, by what are basically still saplings, and will be for many years to come.

[PeteM01 10]

26 minutes ago, Cyclone said:

I can tell you how many were replaced with trees that have now grown to be just as large.  None.

Some of the trees on my street were replaced, by what are basically still saplings, and will be for many years to come.

All trees start off as saplings. You just need to be patient.

 

The loss of trees in specific locations, as mentioned by c00kie, is much more of a concern to me.

[Cyclone 10]

9 hours ago, PeteM01 said:

All trees start off as saplings. You just need to be patient.

 

The loss of trees in specific locations, as mentioned by c00kie, is much more of a concern to me.

Well the loss of trees permanently is definitely worse, but the loss of mature trees for 25 years (which happens to be as long as Amey have a contract) should also be a cause for concern.  Wildlife can't be patient, pollution won't be patient.  We've lost the utility of those trees for now, saplings will grow obviously, but for the next 10 years at least they simply won't perform the same jobs as the trees they've replaced.

[lil-minx92 10]

I think most of the species planted are not like for like replacements. They will be cherry blossom types that wont grow taller than 5 meters or so. The street scenes as we knew them are gone forever. 

[alchresearch 214]

10 hours ago, PeteM01 said:

All trees start off as saplings. You just need to be patient.

How much CO2 can a sapling absorb though, compared to a huge fully grown tree ?

 

How many birds nests can a sapling hold, compared to a fully grown tree?

 

There's much more to it than just swapping one tree for another.

[Longcol 597]

8 minutes ago, alchresearch said:

How much CO2 can a sapling absorb though, compared to a huge fully grown tree ?

 

How many birds nests can a sapling hold, compared to a fully grown tree?

 

There's much more to it than just swapping one tree for another.

As stated before, very few birds nest in street trees and birds do have the choice of a few million others in Sheffield. The change in CO2 absorption among the whole "urban forest" is negligible if any.