Something must have gone seriously wrong inside Sheffield council. What on earth possessed them to give the OK to chopping down up to 17,500 roadside trees in the city, then go after locals who peacefully protested? The battle to stop Sheffield’s controversial tree felling programme is told in this blood-boiling documentary, assembled from footage shot by local photographer Jacqui Bellamy. It’s entirely one-sided, told from the perspective of Team Trees. Though frankly, it’s hard to imagine what the council or its private contractor Amey could come up with to defend some of their actions.
There’s a quick explainer at the start: the tree felling programme was part of a PFI contract worth £2.2bn between Sheffield council and Amey to upgrade the city’s roads. The film opens in 2016 in the aftermath of a dawn raid on mature limes in Rustlings Road. Tree surgeons arrived in the night to cut the trees, police hammering on doors at 5am to get people up to move their cars. Campaigners and locals look devastated; local boy Jarvis Cocker appears on the Today programme. What’s so senseless is that many of the trees for the chop were healthy – a tree could be put on the kill list for making kerbstones wonky (presumably the cost and hassle of repair was calculated as too high). The plan was to replace these magnificent mature trees with saplings.
What follows is a blow by blow account of the skirmishes between the council and wonderfully determined local protesters. There are arrests and an injunction issued by the council. The protesters get inventive to halt “Treemageddon”. Things take a turn for the nasty when contractor Amey hires private security staff, authorised to use “reasonable force”. At a chunky 112 minutes, this documentary does feel a little long. Still, even at half that length it wouldn’t make comfortable viewing for Sheffield councillors – watching bouncers prising the fingers of pensioners from railings in bitterly cold January.
• The Felling is released on 9 December in cinemas.
