Legal bill for Sheffield trees dispute exceeds £400K

Sheffield City Council has run up legal bills of £413,194.38 in proceedings related to protests over its programme of felling street trees.

The council in July secured injunctions against nine named people and ‘persons unknown’ who took direct action to try to halt the programme.

Disclosures by the council to freedom of Information requests show that it spent £109,286.94 successfully defending a judicial review brought in 2016 by protester David Dillner, and £226,906.51 on various injunction proceedings.

Committals involving protesters cost a further £77,000.65.

Across all the various proceedings, barristers’ fees totalled £328,106.44.

Council officers’ time - listed as ‘internal legal recharge’ - cost a total of £74,995.51.

The trees have been cut down under a council contract with construction firm Amey to maintain roads and footways.

Lewis Dagnall, Sheffield’s cabinet member for environment and streetscene, said: in July that the council was preparing a compromise proposal for tree replacement and the work would be paused until these discussions were concluded.