Today is the last Full Council meeting of the year. STAG (Sheffield Tree Action Groups) has called for a "peaceful but noisy" protest at the Town Hall today at 1pm. This is to protest not only about the continued telling of trees but also the lack of transparency and coherence of the new Tree Panel. THE TREE PANEL The difficulties on one street, with damage associated with trees, are no different to the difficulties on any other street that has the same kind of damage. They are the same. You don’t need different specifications for every street, nor do you need citizen suggestions and opinions to help deal with the matter. Such suggestions and opinions should certainly not be expected or relied upon in place of a strategy and specifications draughted by competent, professional highway engineers and competent arboriculturists (as defined by British Standard 5837:2012). There is absolutely no need for such a Tree Panel: “The pressures on tree owners to follow a risk-averse approach have never been greater. Publishing a tree strategy which clearly indicates how these management decisions are taken and by whom allows a local authority to temper a risk-averse outlook. As the House of Lords Select Committee on Economics has put it: ‘…the most important thing government can do is to ensure that its own policy decisions are soundly based on available evidence and not unduly influenced by transitory or exaggerated opinions, whether formed by the media or vested interests.’ ” (The National Tree Safety Group, 2011, p. 25) On 17th November, 2015, at a Streets Ahead Roadshow event in Heeley, Sheffield, Amey's Operations Director for the Streets Ahead project - Darren Butt- told citizens that over 3,500 highway trees have been felled. So, over a four month period, since 23rd July 2015*, over 1,000 highway trees were felled. The rate of felling is expected to increase as woks focus more on more urban areas of the city, where there are more footways and verges with trees. We urgently need a Tree Strategy not at Tree Panel. Please join us today at 1pm. Thank you for your support! Save Netheredge Trees *the date of the inaugural meeting of Cllr Fox’s bi-monthly Highway Trees Advisory Forum (HTAF): Cllr Fox (Labour) is Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport & now self-appointed Chair of HTAF.