In Sheffield, my home town, the council has at last apologised for misleading the public, the media and the courts during the dispute over its unfathomably stupid and vicious campaign to fell 17,500 of the city’s street trees, many of which it now accepts were perfectly healthy. This development is, of course, welcome, if long overdue. But it doesn’t really change anything. Who will ever be able to forget the chainsaws? Beloved limes and sycamores are gone. Most of us will be long dead before their replacements reach anything like maturity.
Thinking about this horrible, unnecessary business all over again, I’m struck by the default accusations of nimbyism on the council’s part, an attitude that persists even now. In its statement, it said that it had misrepresented those who protested against the destruction as “primarily interested only in their own streets”.
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