Sheffield City Council apologises for misleading courts in tree row

The Streets Ahead programme aimed to fell 17,500 street trees as part of the contract between the council and Amey

A letter by Sheffield City Council apologising to the Lord Chancellor for misleading the courts over the street trees scandal has been published.

Thousands of trees were felled as part of a £2.2bn street improvement project, sparking public anger and protests.

The local authority later admitted misleading the public and courts with documents published during the saga.

In the letter to Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk, the council offered "a sincere and unreserved apology" to the courts.

It was made public during a Strategy and Resources Policy Committee meeting last week, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The letter, dated 22 December, was signed by David Hollis, general counsel, and Kate Josephs, Sheffield City Council's chief executive.

In it, they acknowledged the council's own version of the five-year tree management strategy from 2016 differed from the contractual documents produced by contractor Amey.

File photo dated 12 February 2018 of protesters in Chelsea Road in Sheffield

The letter said that while the "exact details of the purpose and creation" of the January 2016 council version of the tree management strategy document were not clear, the "most likely explanation" was that they were created "in order to aid public understanding".

The letter added that together with "additional content not found in the contractual version", this presented a misleading impression as to the nature of the document and tree management solutions available.

Those documents were later referenced in legal proceedings.

The authors of the letter to the Lord Chancellor said that an inquiry carried out by Sir Mark Lowcock into the dispute found that while "no individual involved in the proceedings were aware that the court was being misled…the council as an organisation had collective knowledge that the court was misled".

In June last year, Sheffield City Council published a four-page letter apologising for its handling of the dispute

In the letter, Ms Josephs and Mr Hollis acknowledged those findings and said: "The council could, and should, have been clearer both generally and specifically to the court and parties about the provenance of the January 2016 Five Year Street Management Policy and the differences between the document and the contractual documents produced by Amey."

"For those failings we offer a sincere and unreserved apology to the court," they added.

The letter sent to the Lord Chancellor in December followed the publication in June last year of a four-page letter by Sheffield City Council apologising to people in the city for its handling of the street trees dispute.

In it, the authority acknowledged its "poor" behaviour towards campaigners and residents and its lack of transparency.

A plaque recognising the actions of campaigners who fought to save threatened trees in Sheffield is expected to be installed by the council later this year.