Sheffield Council publishes apology letter over misleading court during the tree fell scandal

As promised by Cllr Tom Hunt, the leader of the council, last week during a Strategy and Resources Policy Committee meeting, the council has made the apology it had sent to Alex Chalk, the Lord Chancellor, in December public.In the letter - signed by David Hollis, General Counsel, and Kate Josephs, chief executive of Sheffield City Council - the authors said the council had already apologised for “misleading the public” - as well as an apology sent to the chair of the Independent Tree Panel.The authors reiterated that the five-year tree management strategy was a “contractual document” prepared and updated by contractor Amey annually, the first version of it created in 2012.The council had published its own five-year tree management strategy in 2016 - following a number of questions and petitions submitted by the public.However, when a “simpler, more accessible” version of the document was published on the council’s website, the authors added, the council “did not make significantly clear the difference between the version it had published and the Amey contractual document”.Together with “additional content not found in the contractual version”, the letter stated, this presented a misleading impression as to the nature of the document and tree management solutions available.The inquiry stated how this had caused “significant amount of confusion due to inconsistencies, inaccurate content and lack of transparency”.The authors stated that while Sir Mark Lowcock’s inquiry found that “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”.They added: “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.”Last year, Sir Mark Lowcock’s report said the council was slow to grasp the reputational damage of the debacle which had become a defining fact about the city, years later.His 100,000-word report detailed the failings of the Streets Ahead programme that aimed to fell 17,500 street trees as part of the £2.2billion contract between the council and Amey.Sir Mark found that the council overstretched its authority in taking drastic action against campaigners, had serious and sustained failures in leadership and misled the public, courts and an independent panel it set up to deal with the dispute.One of Sir Mark’s recommendations was that the council apologises to the court.In June, the council issued an apology to all residents of Sheffield for Sheffield City Council’s actions during the street trees dispute.