Shefffield Trees and Labour: 'They just don't get it'

 

Lobbying Labour

Guest blog by Alan Story

When you in a very bad relationship or in a marriage that cannot be saved, the first thing you need to do is to admit to yourself: “you know what, I've made a horrible mistake.”

But nearly six years after Labour-control Sheffield City Council (SCC) signed a disastrous £2.2 billion PFI contract and on a day when the Sheffield trees crisis featured in the New York Times no less, the local Labour Party has again pulled down the shutters and refused to address the havoc that SCC’s relationship with Amey plc is causing to our now-privatised streets and privatised street trees.

The occasion was the monthly meeting Tuesday night (13 March) of the Sheffield District Labour Party (DLP) meeting. Outside, 35 picketers/ tree campaigners had come together for what was likely the largest picket ever held in front of a Sheffield Labour Party meeting.

But as delegates inside discussed the draft election manifesto it will use for the 3 May election, it was clear that most of those in attendance at the local party's highest decision-making body still did not grasp the basics of what was going wrong on the streets of Sheffield. (Those in attendance included Council Leader Julie Dore who came late and, sadly, after most of the 35 picketers had dispersed.)

Yes, there was concern raised about the contracting out of public sector jobs as a result of the work being done under the profit-making auspices of Amey plc. And yes, that is ONE problem with this PFI deal and, indeed, all PFI deals.


But what delegates failed to understand is that it is the very nature of THE WORK being undertaken which is the main problem. In other words, the planned felling of 17,500 street trees is NOT the same thing as the contracting out of NHS jobs to a US-owned healthcare corporation. Or transforming state schools into profit-driven academies.

This is what a significant number of LP members just do not get.

On one level, to bring contracted out jobs "in house" has, since the September 2017 national Labour Party convention, become National Labour Party policy. It is becoming harder and harder for the SCC to operate a PFI deal that is in direct contravention to the national policy of its own party.

But by focusing almost exclusively on the contracting out jobs issue, the local Labour Party last night again missed the big picture, they didn’t see the forests for the trees ….if you will.

As several observers at last night's meeting confirmed, most DLP delegates failed to address a wide range of issues, such as:

1) Why 17,500 mostly healthy trees were ever planned for the chop back in 2012. (It took a recent successful FOI request by Paul Selby to uncover that SCC has being duplicitous to Sheffield residents about planned tree felling number since the 25-year-long contract was first signed.) More than 5500 mostly healthy trees have already come down.

2) The value of trees for the slowing climate change. SCC cabinet minister Jack Scott, who also attended last night's session, denies they have any value.

3) Why SCC is acting with such contempt for local democratic functioning when it ignores the advice of tree experts and the wishes of local residents and simply carries on willy-nilly with its ruthless chainsaw war.

4) Why squads of South Yorkshire Police have been mobilised across the city and are at the beck-and-call of SCC, who are in a serious political fix, and Amey, who are only interested in their bottom line. (It is hardly surprising that tree campaigners now call SYP “Amey’s police.")

5) Why SCC has applied for civic injunctions to stop peaceful protest and has forced tree campaigners to raise tens of thousands of pounds to defend themselves against the actions of this profoundly authoritarian local council. (Pardon the plug: in the current campaign, 440 supporters have raised more than £11,500 in less than five days: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/stump-up-sheffield)

6) In fact, you don’t even get the sense that some of these so-called LP “lefties” really grasp what privatisation means. For example, how can it be a step toward socialism when a public agency like SYP (directed by a Labour Party Police Commissioner) protects a Spanish-owned multinational corporation (operating under a PFI deal negotiated by the free market LibDems) as it pillages a street of much-loved cherry trees on Abbeydale Park Rise (that are lit with lights every Christmas to raise funds for a hospice)?

7) The value of street trees as things of beauty, as a home for birds, and as promoters of mental health (If I hear one more Labour Party flunky tell me that working-class people "hate trees" I will scream.)

8) Why it is just so wrong to call in (or threaten to call in) social services against the parents of youthful tree campaigners, one of whom rode over on his bicycle and was with us last night.

9) Why there was a leak to the media of the preposterous tale that a 59-year-old architect served poisoned tea to three street tree fellers on her own street. Hold The Star’s front page: next thing you know they'll be telling us that Calvin Payne's backpack is stocked up with nerve gas.

The list could on and on.

What local Labour does not get is what a newspaper headline said back in October: “Look to Sheffield: this is how state and corporate power subverts democracy.”

Stump up for the Sheffield Tree defenders

The perils of PFIs of local authority services, out-sourcing and the pitfalls of poor contracting have been illustrated to devastating effect by the battle going on in Sheffield over the Amey contract for tree 'maintenance' which has seen healthy trees being felled and the transformation of a once leafy streetscape into arid avenues.

Local residents and activists, including from the Green Party, have been desperately trying to save the trees via peaceful protest and have met with rough treatment from the contractors and their security as well as being pursued by bailiffs acting on behalf of the Labour Council.

Several local Labour Parties in  the area have come out against along with Sheffield Momentum. This is the resolution passed by Gleadless Valley Labour Party:

Gleadless Valley Labour Party branch opposes the consequences of the PFI deal for street improvements in Sheffield which has led to both the widespread removal of trees and the failure to meet timescales for road improvements. If this work had been delivered in house by a council service, it is inconceivable that the opposition to tree felling would not have led to changes. 

As it is, the actions of Amey plc have both failed the council’s road improvement ambitions and undermined the reputation of Sheffield’s environmental credentials. 

We reaffirm our support for our G.E. Manifesto’s opposition to PFI deals and call on our sisters and brothers in the Labour Group to support an immediate, mediated settlement to the felling of our street trees.

A Crowdfunder Appeal has been set up to help pay the legal costs imposed by the heavy-handed Sheffield City Council (SCC). You can donate HERE.

The Crowdfunder page sets out the issue:

Calvin Payne and Alastair Wright committed no crime, but in defence of our street trees, they both fell foul of a court injunction pushed through by SCC to force its felling programme on its own citizens. Not satisfied with their punishments for contempt of court, the Council is seeking inflated costs from Alastair and Calvin of £11,000 and £16,000 in costs respectively.

We want to raise £27,000 to pay Alastair and Calvin's legal costs with your help, and the support of Pulp's Nick Banks and Richard Hawley, actor Maxine Peake, and Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party, George Monbiot, author and environmentalist, along with Ken Loach, activist and film maker, and many others,  all offering support and endorsing this Crowdfunder.

We will not stand by and watch legitimate peaceful protest and civil disobedience being extinguished by an anti-democratic SCC with its taste for expensive legal action. For every injunction hearing brought before the judge, SCC is deliberately paying £16,000 a day for London based legal representation so as to intimidate protestors by emptying their wallets and savings accounts.

Tree campaigners in Sheffield, like Calvin and Alastair, are simply asking that the council complies with current urban forestry good practice. A perfectly reasonable request. The council has responded with threats, force, and an army of private security guards to intimidate the many protestors that now attend felling sites on a daily basis. It has ignored experts on all sides, and even ignored the findings of its own 'Independent Tree Panel'.

In this long-running and increasingly bitter dispute, SCC and its principal contractor, Amey plc, have resorted to increasingly desperate measures and unsafe working practices to fell healthy street trees. Their relationship is underpinned by a confidential Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal, a form of financing which is widely discredited; it has led to the privatisation of Sheffield streets and street trees.

The Council has mounted dawn raids, has tried (and failed at great cost) to have a serving Green councillor imprisoned, has smeared and slandered campaigners in the media, while its representatives have repeatedly lied to the people of Sheffield.