Procedural Environmental Injustice in ‘Europe’s Greenest City’: A Case Study into the Felling of Sheffield’s Street Trees

James Heydon

doi:10.3390/socsci9060100

Abstract

With around two million trees within its boundaries, the city of Sheffield, England, is known as the ‘greenest city in Europe’. Of these, 36,000 are ‘street trees’, defined as those planted on pavements and other public rights of way. As of 2012, however, a private contractor was awarded a £2.2 billion contract by Sheffield City Council to upgrade the city’s roads over a 25-year period. This required the felling of over 6000 street trees by the end of August 2017. By 2015, this had sparked such widespread public opposition that the felling programme missed its 2017 deadline. For protesters, the central point of contention was and continues to be the seemingly indiscriminate felling of healthy trees. This article examines the specific forms of harm precipitating local public involvement in such opposition. In doing so, it explains the substantive injustices associated with the felling of street trees before focusing on the underpinning forms of procedural environmental injustice that have allowed for their ongoing production. This contributes to wider green criminological literature by demonstrating how public participation in decision-making is crucial for the attainment of environmental justice.

Highlights

Woodman, spare that tree!Touch not a single bough!In youth it sheltered me, And I’ll protect it now.‘T was my forefather’s handThat placed it near his cot, There woodman let it stand, Thy axe shall harm it not!George Pope Morris, 1860Poem extract pinned to street tree, Rustlings Road, November 2016The above poem represents one of a myriad of approaches taken by citizen groups in Sheffield, England, to raise awareness of the tree felling programme being undertaken across the city
Irrespective of the more substantive injustices associated with the felling of healthy street trees, an array of procedural injustices can be seen to have occurred over the period since the programme started
This article has demonstrated how the concept of ‘procedural environmental justice’ can be applied to situations involving citizens without legally recognised participation rights and to deliberation procedures that are not defined rigidly from the offset, but which emerge in response to citizen opposition

Summary

Introduction

The above poem represents one of a myriad of approaches taken by citizen groups in Sheffield, England, to raise awareness of the tree felling programme being undertaken across the city. 2020, 9, 100 collectively encompassed under the banner of Sheffield Tree Action Groups (STAG), forming a core of public opposition to Sheffield City Council’s (SCC) plan to remove and replace many of the city’s street trees. Sci. 2020, 9, 100 collectively encompassed under the banner of Sheffield Tree Action Groups (STAG), forming a core of public opposition to Sheffield City Council’s (SCC) plan to remove and replace many of the city’s street trees Drawing upon this case, I employ the concept of ‘procedural environmental justice’ in this article as a lens through which to understand the tensions and conflicts that have arisen, along with possible avenues for their future amelioration

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion