Dear supporters There has been an announcement online that the long awaited ‘Independent’ Tree Panel (ITP) is finally up and running and they will consider 36 out of the 62 streets recently 'surveyed'. These 36 streets have hit the 50% response rate in favour of tree RETENTION, required to trigger ITP involvement. But what about the rest? SORT believe that this panel is just another obfuscation of Sheffielder’s democratic right to have a say in OUR communities. The ‘resident’ surveys were improperly delivered and beset with problems from the start, with many residents not realising their need to vote at all or the timescales for completion. Survey questions are confusing, manipulative and misleading. Furthermore, residents on connecting streets, have had NO say, despite threatened trees being close to their homes and a big part of their lives. This is totally UNACCEPTABLE. It is OUR neighbourhood and OUR health and wellbeing being affected by the mishandling of the Amey contract. Healthy trees are being needlessly felled and SCC are still failing to fully engage with communities, by persisting with this deeply flawed survey process. SORT do not accept the Resident Survey, as an appropriate level of involvement for local people. SORT demand a HALT to the felling of healthy trees, until an acceptable tree strategy is in place. This is to be based on current industry best practice and will guide and inform decision making to ensure tree management choices are proportionate, defendable and not unduly influenced by transitory or exaggerated opinions. SORT demand that competent highway engineers work with competent arboriculturists, to design ALTERNATIVE HIGHWAY SPECIFICATIONS for footways. This would allow the safe retention of most of Sheffield’s threatened mature highway stock (currently scheduled for felling due to pavement ridging) without the need for the empty circus and drums that is the resident survey and ITP. We demand SUSTAINABLE management of OUR highway trees. What's more, with regard to the ITP, how can the panel be ‘Independent’ if: a) The whole panel has been selected by the council and b) The council has not agreed to be bound by a panel decision? Also, is the fate of the street trees on all 36 streets to be decided in a single meeting? Or will the ‘experts’ actually be engaging with the communities that they are supposed to be ‘taking evidence’ from. If it is the former, then this has all just been an elaborate sham and a complete waste of all of our time, as we suspected all along. We want REAL engagement with communities and not empty promises for the sake of a PR stunt. These are OUR trees and they remain OUR trees, whatever decisions are made. Without honesty and transparency, there simply is no integrity. Watch this space and don’t be fooled! AFOOFA! SORT