The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

Turns out the Lying Looney Labour party DO have magic money trees after all.

In the city of Sheffield there is a contract to maintain the thousands of trees that are spread across the city making it one of the leafiest cities in the UK.

It costs a fortune to constantly chop back and effectively "prune" trees so that they don't cause a danger to public and transport each year. In fact this is all a part of a "£2bn highway maintenance scheme" according to a report.

The Sheffield Looney Labour Council has the answer. They are simply chopping down all the trees !!! The public has been protesting against this for a long time, gathered petitions with many thousands of signatures. They have engaged in peaceful protests, blocking the site of the sub-contracted company Amey and blocking areas around trees. The Looney Labour Council however are absolutely determined to save all those contracted tree maintenance costs and are using the law to prevent people from obstructing the work of the contractors.

Already they have felled over 4000 absolutely healthy trees and they aren't done yet !

What a travesty !

This is the real Lying Looney Labour at work. Corbyn sits by whilst his Labour Council runs amok destroying healthy trees in order to save costs for themselves. It's frankly disgusting.

People really need to wake up and see the sham that is the Labour Party for what it is.

https://leftfootforward.org/2017/09/...al-opposition/

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...lling-campaign


What will the Loonies do next? Cement in all the road drains in order to stop them having to pay to constantly have them drained and cleared?!!

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

And.....the alternative view HERE

If it's not the whole truth..................it's a lie........Realist sir.

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

And yet if they spent money maintaining them I am willing to bet that would be looney magic money tree too.

I never defend people taking down trees it's vandalism IMO so i don't condone them but that doesn't make my point any less valid IMO

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

I take back my vandalism charge it sounds like realist post was rubbish ! I was answering that before I got full view teaches me don't believe half of what is posted by some.

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

Nothing Bruv has posted there changes the situation.

Amey IS contractually obliged to maintain 35,000 trees across Sheffield as well as other aspects of the highway such as bridges and so on.

The issue is whether trees are being felled purely so that Amey then does not have to fork out £000s maintaining the trees (the job they are contracted to do).

This has been going on for some time.

Read the article below which highlights the infamous early hours "dawn raid" on 8 trees on Rustlings Road.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...shire-38024846

The trees were going to save £50,000 for them and yet most were healthy and fine. The BBS article highlights that an independent report found no "arboricultural reason" to remove seven of the trees.

For those interested in the actual facts, you can see a list of the various reviews conducted by the Independent Tree Panel Sheffield here:

https://archive.org/download/ITPDeci...ons%20all.xlsx

Let's take the Rustlings Road example from above. In the report above the ITP said of the 8 trees proposed to be removed:

"The tree adjacent to the junction of Ecclesall Road and the bus stop is in good condition with good life expectancy. The tree occupies a prominent position. There is no arboricultural need to remove and replace this tree. The tree is causing disruption to the pavement and has displaced some kerb stones. Retaining this tree would require excavation of the pavement to determine whether a level pavement could be installed, the marginal realignment of the kerb line for a distance of about ten metres and possibly the installation of a tree pit or a grass verge (as appears to have previously been the case). This would therefore require consideration of engineering options, including 2, 12 and 16. However, we recognise that these options may compromise the width and therefore safety of the carriageway, particularly as the tree in question stands immediately after a bus stop. We therefore advise that in considering this, the Council should undertake a swept path analysis of a bus leaving the bus stop towards Ecclesall Road. We also recognise that the
engineering solutions may require additional expenditure.

(My emphasis added)


The responses of Amey (Streets Ahead Contract) were:

"An option is construct a footway buildout and ramp, relocate the bus stop providing additional funding can be sourced."

Then

"After a review of the costs of building engineering solutions to retain trees that involve changes to the highway on a number of sample tree situations the cost of applying similar bespoke engineering solutions which are outside the Streets Ahead contract, across the rest of the highway network is estimated to be of the order of £14-26 million. The Council does not have such additional funding available and many solutions would also be of a short term nature.

Final decision - the trees were simply felled. Money came first.

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

And they are replacing them from what I can see. Trees don't last for ever they do get diseases and out grow positions. Someone has to deal with that.

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

Some other examples from the ITP report:

Marstone Crescent

ITP Re-inspected 2 trees on 31/05/16

Conclusion:

"We advise that there appears to be no reason to remove and replace this tree, but that one limb should be removed."

Final decision of Streets Ahead Programme

"Replace tree anyway"

Reason stated:

"ITP suggestion does not tackle all issues, site work to date has shown root work in footway to be un- workable. Removal of large section of crown, not desirable"


Bowood Road

ITP report stated:

"The one other tree, outside number 16, appears to be in good condition; we could see no sign of decay. We advise that there is no arboricultural need to remove this trees.
We have therefore considered whether there are engineering solutions that would prevent the need for removal and replacement of this tree. The tree is causing some damage to the pavement. We believe this could be resolved with engineering solutions, including 1, 3 and 12 We advise that the Council could consider this."

The Amey (Streets Ahead) Programme response:

Get another independent inspection into the health of the tree !

Resulting new independent inspection says:

"Independent tree inspection has verified Amey's findings that the tree is in poor condition and should be replaced"

lol !


Abbeydale Park Rise

ITP review of the proposed tree felling:

"We believe that it may be feasible to retain the remaining trees (those outside numbers 2, 6-8, 22-24, 30-32, 36, 39, 42-44, 49, 55, 56-58, 64 and 75) and renew the pavement by a combination of root pruning and excavation beneath the roots (solutions 8 and 10) . This would require excavation, the removal of soil and other material, the selective pruning of roots, depressing the remaining roots and replacing the soil and other material, all to industry standards."


Amey (Street Ahead) Response:

Standard cut/paste response

"After a review of the costs of building engineering solutions to retain trees that involve changes to the highway on a number of sample tree situations the cost of applying similar bespoke engineering solutions which are outside the Streets Ahead contract, across the rest of the highway network is estimated to be of the order of £14-26 million. The Council does not have such additional funding available and many solutions would also be of a short term nature."

Final decision: Trees felled.


and so on and on and on


This is as much about saving £000s that would otherwise have to be expended on fulfilling the contract to maintain the trees.

No-one is objecting to the felling of dead or dangerous trees, but this Looney Labour Council is felling thousands of trees imo because they don't want to foot the costs associated with maintaining them

What next?

Will they line up pensioners and shoot them to avoid forking out weekly pension payments??!!

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

Yes Julie which is why the Independent Tree Panel exists, to assess each case as above. There are many justified cases where trees are dead or diseased. No-one objects to those. But there are numerous cases where they simply don't want to pay for the maintenance work involved in repairing pavements or "pruning" trees and so on.

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

From what I read, it seems its not Sheffield Council but this private company which is trying to save money on the contract they signed up to with the council - its the sort of thing that a scumbag 'nasty party' supporting company would do.

Re: The Looney Labour Magic Money Trees

Never mind they can replace them using the Tory magic money tree they used to pay the DUP to support them after they lost their mandate at their election May said she would not call.