Campaigners for city’s trees halt ‘chainsaw massacre’

Plymouth officials called ‘vandals’ for felling 110 trees as High Court issues reprieve for remaining 16

TREES at the centre of a bitter row in Plymouth were given a temporary reprieve by the High Court yesterday.

Cheers went up among campaigners in the city centre as the judge said a midnight injunction that saved 16 trees moments before they were to be felled last week would stay in place.

The trees will be safe at least until the conclusion of a judicial review, which could take three to four months.

The injunction, brought by campaigners, came too late to save 110 trees that were cut down by Plymouth council in a night-time operation that was branded “environmental vandalism”.

The felling began last Tuesday, moments after Richard Bingley, the council leader, used executive powers to sign off on the operation in Armada Way.

Cllr Bingley has since resigned, but yesterday told The Daily Telegraph he had “no regrets” about his decision, arguing that the area where the trees stood was an “unsafe dump”.

In a hearing yesterday, Sir Ross Cranston, the High Court judge, said there was a “serious issue to be tried” over the council’s use of emergency powers.

Making his decision, he said of the trees that “once they are gone, they are gone”. Lawyers for the council had argued that the operation was “not tree wrecking; it is cutting down the wrong tree in the wrong place” and said the urgency was required in the run-up to local elections in May.

The judge ruled the remaining branches and stumps from the 110 trees that were cut down in the night-time operation could be cleared by the council once it carried out an ecological assessment.

The injunction was sought by Save The Trees of Armada Way, a campaign group. Ali White, who has led the campaign, celebrated that the trees would be safe from the council’s “chainsaws”.

“The decision by Plymouth council to come to court today to try and overturn our injunction despite almost universal condemnation of their actions last week is staggering and gives you an indication of what we have been up against these last six months,” she said outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

“The decision to completely destroy our urban forest against overwhelming public opposition in a way that avoided public scrutiny is indefensible.”

The council had hoped to push ahead with their plan to clear the remaining trees to make way for a £12.6 million redevelopment. In Plymouth, campaigners had gathered at Armada Way yesterday afternoon awaiting the verdict on plastic chairs decorated with ribbons and knitted banners.

They erupted in a cheer when they got the news that, for now, the remaining trees would be saved. It had been an emotional campaign, with many giving time and money to save the trees they had grown up around.

Lesley Park, whose café Oggy Oggy overlooks the site where the trees were felled, said: “I cannot believe the council did it in the dark of the night. It’s ruined the view, we had to fight to be able to put our tables outside again. We lost business in the last two weeks.”

Cllr Bingley, who was facing a vote of no confidence before his decision to step down, said: “I have no regrets whatsoever about implementing this plan which will transform an area of our city that was and is an unsafe dump.

“Our improvement plan is tremendous, exactly what our blighted city centre needs. My own take on this, is that [the] council’s revised Armada Way transformation plan – rich in treelines and fauna – is both beautiful and belated.”

‘The decision to destroy our urban forest against overwhelming public opposition is indefensible’