Sheffield Trees Scandal: Finally, a grovelling apology to the city

Its opening is explicit: “We are sorry for the actions that we took during the street trees dispute.”

It closes with just as little ambiguity: “We will listen and learn, we will try and maybe we will fail sometimes.

“Failing and making mistakes is a part of life, but refusing to listen and learn is a mistake we can never repeat.”

It acknowledges just how overdue it is.

In between opening and closing statements, it breaks down the areas of its own failure, addressing and apologising for each in turn.

It follows - some say unavoidably - the publication of the scalding Sheffield Street Trees Inquiry Report earlier this year by Sir Mark Lowcock.

The report found the council’s handling of 25-year private finance initiative (PFI) contract with outsourcing firm Amey had been “dishonest”, and a “dark episode” for the city.

It said the council misled the High Court over the affair, and detailed one occasion when residents were dragged out of bed to remove their cars to enable tree removal - something former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg described at the time as “Something you’d expect to see in Putin’s Russia”.

For Paul Brooke, former co-chairman of the Sheffield Tree Action Groups, who was subjected to court action from the city council when he was accused of breaking a civil injunction - something later dismissed by a judge - the council was left with no option but an apology.

He said: “There’s nothing they can do to defend what happened. They commissioned the report, it’s absolutely damning, there’s nothing else they can do but apologise.

Among the key failures addressed yesterday was the systematic misleading of the public and ultimately the courts.

It said: “It was not only the public who were misled. While the inquiry found that the outcomes of legal action would have been the same without the council’s version of the five-year tree management strategy, this document was misleading and mishandled.

“The council should have removed it from circulation and made the courts aware that it was not part of Amey’s operational approach.

“Misleading the courts is a serious matter and we will write to them to apologise.”

Mr Brooke said: “I expect to see a printed public apology to the court, specifically explaining what they are apologising for, rather than a generic ‘we got stuff wrong, we shouldn’t have done it’.

“I would really like to know what the High Court thinks of that.”

"I do think there is a genuine desire to learn from what happened and never be in that sort of situation again, not just about trees but about bad decision-making, and I think the council has fundamentally changed. All of those things you can trace back to the roots of the campaign.

“To use a cliche, and I think in some ways it’s only trivial, but the council report recommended they should install a plaque in the Town Hall entrance, of similar quality and size, to the plaque for the Kinder Trespass.

“For us, that plaque was always a bit of a symbol of obstinate people back then in the 1930s doing direct action and trying to take on the authorities.

“So I’m looking forward to them installing that plaque that says something along the lines of ‘commemorating the brave citizens of Sheffield who stood up to their council’.

“That’s something that, along with the trees that are still standing, will last for countless generations to come.

“Hopefully people in many years to come will read it and think ‘Sometimes it’s worth fighting the authorities’.”