++++++++++++++++ A NO STUMP CITY media release --- 5 FEB. +++++++++++++++++ Last week Sheffield Momentum told the Sheffield City Council cabinet its PFI-financed tree felling programme was dead wrong. Now a SCC councillor from Crookes has also broken ranks. In an on-the-record interview this morning with NO STUMP CITY, Craig Gamble Pugh was asked: “do you support the 13 December decision by the SCC cabinet to approve Amey’s demand to fell 23 WW1 healthy trees on Western Road in your ward?” “No”, replied the 43-year-old councillor and Momentum member. Gamble Pugh is the first sitting SCC Labour councillor to openly dissent from the Lodge-Dore line on trees. Whether SCC Labour whips will discipline or suspend him will be closely watched by LP members as well as tree campaigners across the city. “We welcome Craig’s open support, but I am sure he appreciates that if and when the Amey arbs try to go for the trees on Western Road, literally hundreds of tree campaigners would join us from across the city in a campaign of resistance, ” said Alan Story of NO STUMP CITY and a tree campaigner who lives on Western Road. “The answer is to ‘Axe PFI’s, not trees’.” “ And while these trees are special to those of us who live in Crookes, trees such as those on Briar Road in Nether Edge or on Meersbrook Park Road are also special.” In a national political climate where the failings of PFIs have been clearly exposed and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said that Carillion was a ‘watershed’, opposition within local Labour has escalated rapidly. On 18 January, Gleadless Valley Labour Party passed an emergency motion (by a 30-1 vote) calling for an immediate mediated settlement of the trees dispute. Several days later, Heeley MP Louise Haigh said the SCC & Amey tree felling plan was “completely unsustainable.” On 31 January (and while its meeting was being picketed by NO STUMP CITY), Sheffield Momentum issued a statement stating that “does not support” the SCC-Amey Streets Ahead PFI deal and called upon the SCC Labour Group “to provide a non-confrontational negotiated way of working with concerned residents and Amey plc.” Today Gamble Pugh has gone on the record for the first time. “I’ve got a clear message from the people of my ward that they do not want these Western Road trees down,” said Gamble Pugh. He was first elected for Crookes-Crosspool in May 2016 and is standing for re-election in the May 2018 local election. His fellow Labour councillor Anne Murphy, who used to live on Western Road, has not responded to more than five e-mails ( the latest on 4 Feb.) asking her for her position on the planned felling. The current SCC Labour cabinet has a history of sharply punishing LP councillors who dissent from the Lodge-Dore-Amey line on trees. Councillor Nasima Akther, who represented the Nether Edge and Sharrow ward, abstained from a vote on a motion put forward at a full council meeting on December 7 2016. She was subsequently suspended (https://www.thestar.co.uk/…/labour-sheffield-councillor-sus…) and, a few months later, resigned ( https://www.thestar.co.uk/…/sheffield-councillor-standing-d…) Gamble Pugh was himself recently disciplined by the SCC whips for some very mild comments he made on the BBC One Show in November about the fate of Western Road trees. END OF RELEASE ++++++++++++++++++++++++ No Stump City ‘Independent Political Action to Save Sheffield Trees’ No.stump.city@gmail.com