Campaigners have demonstrated against a “politically controversial” tree-felling programme in Sheffield, hours after the start of a high court injunction against protesters.

About 50 campaigners, some wearing wigs and dressing gowns and one in a Michael Gove mask, blockaded a Sheffield city council depot to try to prevent tree-felling contractors from leaving on Wednesday morning.

The demonstration came hours after a high court injunction preventing protesters from taking “unlawful direct action” came into place at midnight.

The order, requested by Sheffield city council and granted last week, prohibits protesters from entering safety zones around trees that are due to be chopped down, but does not explicitly ban other forms of protest.

The former Green party leader Natalie Bennett was among the protesters. She said: “This morning is crucial on the day that the injunction will come in. This is a demonstration that the Sheffield Trees Action Group, the tree protecters, very much haven’t given up and this will continue to be a cat-and-mouse game.

“One tactic may now effectively have been lost to us, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty more things that can be done.”

The judge, Mr Justice Males, had said the council was entitled to the injunction but that he was not expressing a view on the tree-felling programme: “Those are social and environmental questions which are politically controversial and can only be resolved in a political forum.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protesters, some wearing wigs and dressing gowns, slow walking to blockade Sheffield council’s Olive Grove Road. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

By 8am on Wednesday, as bemused residents made their way to work, dozens of protesters gathered outside the council’s Olive Grove depot, the centre of its Streets Ahead road maintenance programme, about two miles south of Sheffield city centre.

Some campaigners donned wigs and pyjamas – in solidarity, they said, with the Sheffield residents woken at dawn by council contractors chopping down street trees.

One wore a mask featuring Gove’s face after the environment secretary demanded an end to the “destruction of thousands of mature trees”, which he said would “damage our children’s rightful inheritance”. The council hit back and accused Gove of wading in without checking the facts and pursuing “ill-informed whims” that contradicted his government’s policy.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Person Unknown placards mocked the high court injunction. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Many protesters wore signs saying “Person Unknown” to mock the high court injunction, which refers to three named defendants and persons unknown.



A representative of Amey, the council’s contractor carrying out the tree-felling work, told protesters police had been called because they were preventing vehicles leaving the depot.

Addressing the large group of protesters, Nick Hetherington, a network manager at Amey, said: “We would like our vehicles to be able to leave the depot. You are preventing us from doing so therefore we have contacted the police to say a group of people are blocking the highway and preventing us from carrying out our work.”

Challenged by one protester, who said no Amey vehicles had been blocked in, Hetherington added: “My understanding is that every time an Amey vehicle tries to leave the protesters walk across the highway to prevent that. We’re not going to put people’s safety at risk, therefore we have turned around [inside the depot].”

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Alison Teal, a Green party councillor who was one of those named in the high court injunction, said Wednesday’s action showed that the fight to protect the city’s trees would continue.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A placard cites Michael Gove. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

“This protest shows that while [the council] might think the injunctions have made a difference, we’re still as opposed as we ever were to the felling of healthy street trees,” she said.

Calvin Payne, another of those named in the injunction, said: “This is hour one, effectively, of the injunction so we wanted to make sure we were out doing something immediately this morning, throughout the day and throughout the week.

“At the very least, there’s going to be a colourful presence of people making the point. But from here we’re going to go on and have a presence at the fellings in Sheffield that have been defended for two years.

“The council think they have free rein to carry out fellings in parts of Sheffield where residents almost unanimously don’t want that to happen.”

Council bosses have said they need to cut down 500 trees by the end of the year or face “catastrophic financial consequences”.

Bryan Lodge, the Labour councillor in charge of the tree-felling programme, said the council would be in breach of a £2.2bn, 25-year private finance initiative (PFI) contact with Amey if the trees were not counted. He has said the cost of violating the contract could be “into the millions”.

I’m defying the council I serve on to stop it felling trees | Alison Teal Read more

A number of Sheffield residents have been arrested trying to protect some of the 6,000 trees that are to be felled as part of a 25-year, £2bn highway maintenance scheme.

One campaigner, Simon Crump, wearing a red wig, sunglasses and a blue dressing gown, said he had been bullied into signing the high court order under the threat of having to pay damages or his house being seized. “This is something we can legally do this morning. This is not a safety zone. There are not trees to stand under. My idea is to prevent them from getting out of here with the chippers because this is day one – the injunction came into force at midnight. This is still lawful and it’s basically all we can do.”

Council bosses say the programme is essential if the city’s 36,000 street trees are to be managed for future generations. It insists the trees earmarked for felling are dying, diseased or dangerous – a claim disputed by residents and campaigners.

• Two picture captions on this article were amended on 23 August 2017, because an earlier version said Orchard Grove Road, when Olive Grove Road was meant.

