CROWDFUNDER LAUNCHES TODAY [ https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/stump-up-sheffield ] A MEDIA RELEASE FROM ‘STUMP UP SHEFFIELD’ +++++++++++++++++ A number of leading Sheffield-based and national figures in the arts and politics have endorsed a fundraising campaign for £27,000 that launches today on behalf of two Sheffield tree campaigners. Among those endorsing the campaign are: Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green Party, film maker Ken Loach, Sheffield musicians Nick Banks and Richard Hawley, actor Maxine Peake and journalist & environmentalist George Monbiot. The campaign was started after Labour-controlled Sheffield City Council (SCC) decided to collect a total of £27,000 in legal costs from two street tree campaigners, Calvin Payne and Alastair Wright. A court upheld the Council's request after both Sheffield residents fell afoul of an injunction granted to the Council in August 2017. " Not only is it unfair to try to collect these huge legal fees from these two men of very average means, but this is a none-too-subtle attempt to crush the Sheffield pro-trees movement," said a spokesperson for 'Stump Up Sheffield', the campaign group behind this fundraising effort. It ends in April. " Instead of splashing out on a Rolls-Royce legal budget and bringing in Queen's Counsels from London on £15,000 a day to enforce this injunction, SCC should halt the felling of thousands of healthy trees and start immediate mediation talks with tree campaigners," continued the spokesperson. “Savings on the police budget alone would buy a Rolls-Royce, indeed a fleet of Rolls Royces.” It is not only hundreds of tree campaigners who say SCC is dead wrong about trees. In recent weeks, a growing number of local Labour Party branches and constituencies have also come out strongly against the 25-year-long PFI contract between SCC and Amey PLC which is putting Sheffield in the national media spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The crowdfunding campaign can be accessed here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/stump-up-sheffield . A video, filmed this week on Western Road, features an interview with Calvin and Alastair; it can be viewed at the above link. This campaign is sponsored by: NO STUMP CITY (no.stump.city@gmail.com) and SHEFFIELD TREE ACTION GROUPS (https://savesheffieldtrees.org.uk/)