Local campaigners Rescue Hoad's Wood 🍃💚🍃 have done an amazing job. Without them, the waste would likely still be being tipped, let alone there being any prospect of existing waste being removed. Do give them a follow, amplify their campaign & sign their petition change.org/p/rescue-hoad-…

Destruction of a precious ancient bluebell woodland in the Kent countryside under a deluge of illegal landfill waste shows the utter failure of environmental law, complete inaction by the authorities & increasing lawlessness in the UK. Let me tell you the story of Hoads Wood 🧵

If we had a system of holistic accounting in place a decade ago, all 5,600 of Sheffield's felled street trees could have been saved – because it would have made no economic sense to chop them down.

In a word, it would have been unviable 🙅‍♀️

Our city is built at the confluence of five rivers, and is only a stone's throw from the beautiful Peak District.

But we treat nature with contempt in Sheffield.

A thread 🧵👇

(📸: Bryony Finnigan)

Should be required viewing for anyone claiming we must get rid of the ECHR.

The exhibition of the original artwork from Adoette is on at Discover until May. 🌳💚

Another England Peak District National Park #mountainhare hotspot about to wink out. Systematic grid square transect count data: 2017: 53 , 2018: 52, 2019: 48, 2020: 18, 2021: 20, 2022: 11, 2023: 11, 2024: 5
People's Trust for Endangered Species HPT Hare Preservation Trust BMC Access Team World Lagomorph Society

Here’s more detail on further action needed in this scandal: courts need to explain why they credulously accepted what Council were telling them & Sheffield City Council needs to waive privilege & release all legal docs related to tree scandal, so we can better understand what went wrong.

From a legal perspective, it is yet another reminder that those with money & power are using their ability to pay for lawyers that most ordinary people can’t afford to game the legal system & bully their opponents, & courts are not doing enough to correct that systemic imbalance

This is a particularly acute issue where the current council political incumbents are using an injunction to force through irreversible decisions with effects far beyond the next election cycle: eg felling mature trees that simply can’t be regrown or replaced in our lifetimes.

Sheffield Tree Scandal brings into question whether local authorities should ever be able to resolve essentially political disputes with their own citizens by using citizens’ own taxes to pay lawyers to obtain injunctions threatening to jail & bankrupt them for their opposition

We now know that the local authority could & did do such a thing. Further we know that if local people had not disobeyed the law (& the High Court injunction) then millions of pounds worth of public assets (& much-loved & irreplaceable trees) would’ve been destroyed for no reason

I appeared in court numerous times for the tree defenders. I tried in both cross-examination & submissions to raise the point that the Council were being misleading, but this was rejected by the judge effectively on the basis that a local authority just wouldn’t do such a thing.

Echoes of the Post Office in Sheffield Tree Scandal: a public authority misleads courts, who credulously accept what the authority tells them & grant injunctions to jail & bankrupt ordinary citizens desperately trying to do what is right & prevent unnecessary destruction of trees

An excellent resource for outdoorsy women!

Also nice to see a couple of familiar faces.

SO well deserved!

I've been growing my hair for over three years, for the Little Princess Trust. On Tuesday it will be chopped off. I'm raising money for the cost of turning it into a wig.

justgiving.com/page/rebecca-h…

Christmas is fast approaching, we hope to see you there!