Approximately 150 people have staged a protest in support of two men who appeared in court in Sheffield after they tried to stop a 100-year-old tree being cut down.

Simon Crump and Calvin Payne are two of five people to have been arrested in the long-running battle over the local authority’s tree-felling programme.

Campaigners claim 4,000 trees across the city have been chopped down since a 25-year private finance initiative (PFI) deal with the private contractor Amey was signed in 2012.

The deal to maintain the city’s roads and pavements claims it will “see Sheffield’s roads transformed from some of the worst in the country to the best”.



The controversy attracted national media attention this month when two women in their 70s spent eight hours in a police cell after they staged a similar demonstration to prevent trees on their road being chopped down.

Scores of people gathered outside Sheffield magistrates court on Thursday morning to protest against the charges against the two men and the cutting down of what they say are healthy trees.

The former Green party leader Natalie Bennett addressed the rally saying that people in the city were being “terrorised” by the police and the council. Bennett has been chosen by her party to stand in the Sheffield Central constituency at the next election and she is in the process of moving to the city. It was a target seat for the Greens in May 2015, when the party secured 15.8% of the vote. The Labour MP Paul Blomfield increased his majority there and won 55% of the vote.

Natalie Bennett at a rally outside Sheff Mags court against the felling of trees. She will stand in Sheff Central at the next election pic.twitter.com/jIvTHNxKGe — Frances Perraudin (@fperraudin) December 1, 2016

Crump and Payne pleaded not guilty to charges under section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which criminalises anyone who persistently stops someone from carrying out lawful work, in this case tree surgeons contracted by Amey to chop down trees on 2 November.

A trial date has been set for 9 March and the pair remain on unconditional bail until then. Speaking outside the court, Crump, a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Huddersfield, said he was pleased the case would be heard in court. “My reaction is, bring it on,” he said.

Payne, a well-known local campaigner, said the protest outside the court was about more than tree felling. “It’s about the imposition of this contract. It’s the undemocratic nature of it and the fact that the democratic process seems to have shut down while this 25-year contract with the company is in place.”

A council spokesperson said they could not comment on police proceedings, but they have previously said the roots of many of the trees earmarked for felling prevent people in wheelchairs and people pushing buggies from using pavements.

Bennett said none of the protesters had a problem with the council taking action to deal with diseased or dangerous trees, but said independent experts had declared many of the felled trees to be healthy.

She argued that it was cheaper for Amey to chop down old trees with big roots and plant new ones, than it was for them to maintain mature ones. “Amey is acting to maximise its profits. It’s a private company and that’s what it is supposed to do,” she said.

Sheffield city council apologised last week after a team from Amey woke up residents on Rustlings Road at 5am to ask them to move their vehicles so they could fell trees.

Freda Brayshaw, a retired French teacher, and Jenny Hockey, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Sheffield, both in their 70s, were arrested along with another man when they tried to protect the trees.

The dispute has caused headaches for Labour, with the chair of the Sheffield Central constituency party warning the council’s leader that the controversy threatened the party’s future in the city. On Thursday South Yorkshire’s Labour police and crime commissioner, Alan Billings, hit out at Sheffield council for causing “reputational damage to the force at a time when it cannot afford it”.

“There was no plan to involve SYP officers in door knocking, but on the morning there were insufficient council/contractor staff to knock on all doors in a timely fashion,” he wrote in a letter to the MP for Sheffield Hallam, Nick Clegg.

Vanessa Leeming, who lives in the Nether Edge area of the city and has several trees earmarked for felling on her road, said she had decided to get involved in the campaign when she heard about the morning raid this month.

“People are trying to make us out to be tree-hugging idiots, but it’s got nothing to do with that,” she said. “We want an organised programme so that dangerous, decaying and diseased trees are managed. But they are murdering and felling completely healthy 100-year-old trees that have given Sheffield its green reputation.

“Sheffield is an ugly city. It was bombed and annihilated in the war. We’ve got no architectural beauty like other cities, but what we have got is our greenery, our trees and our parks.”

