Held on line
Present
Mark James (Chair), Helen McIlroy (Minutes), Ruth Hubbard, Woll Newall, Isabel O’Leary, Paul Selby, Christine King, Mark Brown. Gerry Firkins joined later.
Apologies
Alison Teal, Sue Kondakor, Andrew Kondakor, Asha Dube
Intro
Ruth reminded attendees of the purpose of General Meetings (member input/decision-making – underpinned by an ongoing organisational conversation for information-sharing to contribute to informed decisions).
She highlighted for today that there was one formal proposal in relation to SSTP representative selection and this would go to an all-member vote following the meeting.
Ruth reported that, in its last meeting, the Committee also decided that after six months they must now adopt a more formal and systematic approach to securing the STAG public facebook group – Woll is reporting on this later in the meeting but it is inappropriate at this point for a wider discussion to be reopened during the meeting. The Committee will keep members informed as much as possible about progress.
There were no Matters Arising
Agenda Items
1
Tree Planting (Isabel O’Leary)
Contact has been made with community group Green City Action in Burngreave who are working towards planting trees on Spital Hill. They already have links within the community and SCC Community Foresters. The model is that STAG would provide 95% of the funding, the remainder would come from the community as their ‘buy-in’ to the project, to encourage care for the trees once planted.
Isabel has also made contact with Greener Greenhill, exploring planting in Lowedges, Batemoor and Jordanthorpe. Plans are on track for ordering trees by the end of March for planting next winter.
Paul Selby explained that using NESST as an example, by ordering well in advance of the November deadline that is advertised on Trees for Streets, we can ensure the choice of the full range of the most suitable species.
2
SSTP (Isabel O’Leary/Helen McIlroy)
The new SSTP manager seems efficient and is getting information out.
STAG needs to be on the SSTP as community representatives among many professionals. [This is one of the more-focused aims suggested by members in the Development meeting held on 13/9/25].
In relation to the Darnall/Attercliffe/City Centre Active Travel project, the proposals for some tree species seem inappropriate for planting in tarmac. Christine King pointed out that planners have their own priorities and tend not to think in terms of permanence. Paul added that the cycle of poorly thought through species suggestions repeats itself constantly – the two parts of the Council remain in silos and that Highways allows the Urban Planning team to embarrass itself every time.
3
Constitutional Reform (Ruth Hubbard)
A proposal to regularise choice of the STAG representatives on the SSTP has been circulated to all members and, as it involves a constitutional change, needs a full member vote. A vote will take place following the meeting – a vote is important now (in advance of any further constitutional proposals later) to ensure that the change can be effected for upcoming STAG annual elections and AGM. Ruth summarised the proposal in the meeting which is to have one rep elected by the Membership and one proposed by (but not necessarily from) the Committee. There were no questions.
Under this item Ruth also took the opportunity to highlight two significant issues for upcoming constitutional issues review. As only one person had put themselves forward for a working group Ruth would now be working with that person but essentially closely with the Committee to develop proposals. She didn’t want members to be surprised by proposals coming forward so highlighted a couple of issues at this stage:
1. The ‘working model’ of STAG is built around the idea of a number of active working groups and a very active membership – with the Committee “monitoring” these. This has been very far from the reality of how STAG now works (and this ‘working model’ seems to be more suitable for quite a different time) and it is Committees who essentially do all the work with individuals and any groups they are liaising with. So she highlighted that fixing an ‘out of kilter’ working model will likely be the subject of proposals and she’s certainly still more than happy to talk to any members about this and will try to ensure all are kept informed of thinking.
2. Clarification of STAG’s legal status as a de facto ‘charitable’ organisation will also be important. Participants asked about this and its value (or not) to STAG e.g. for funding opportunities. Ruth said she actually thought it would be of some value in a number of ways and re-clarified that it is not STAG’s choice to be charitable or not: STAG clearly meets the legal criteria for charitable status and is therefore ‘charitable’ (and subject to the charity law framework). This is, of course, proportionate and does not involve ‘registering’ (we are far too small for this to be required) and nor should it create any more bureaucracy; however it does give STAG access and back up to a further supporting resource base, and especially for Committee approaches and operations.
4
Handover update report (Woll Newall)
The handover is still not complete. Some significant documents have disappeared, and the Committee now believes they will never be handed over by the previous committee.
The Committee’s last request for further info on some items, sent a month ago to some of the previous committee members, got no response.
Handover Protocol
The Committee has been working on a handover protocol to make future handovers smoother. This includes detailed documentation describing how best to set up and handover access to assets like the STAG gmail accounts, to avoid the problems that happened this time. We have also ensured that each asset has more than one Committee member with access, so there is not a reliance on a single Committee member for each asset. This is to make sure that a disaster recovery process is possible in a worst case scenario, or if a previous Committee member completely refuses to cooperate in the handover, as happened in 2025.
General organisation systems/protocols
The Committee has also been working in the background to try to get the more general organisational systems for publishing minutes, data handling, voting and communicating regularly with members etc in place and fit-for-purpose and usable by the typical ‘non-techie’ Committee member.
STAG Public Facebook Group
It is a legal obligation of the STAG Committee to ensure that it has proper oversight of all STAG assets, and to properly hold these assets on behalf of members for handing on to the next Committee.
At the Emergency Meeting in July the Committee asked members for a steer on how to proceed when the STAG Public Facebook Group was not handed over to the new Committee by the current unauthorised Admins of that Facebook Group. There was a strong steer from members that the Committee and the Admins of that Facebook Group should arrange a private, mediated meeting to sort out the handover. The Committee immediately agreed to mediation, and over the following 6 months has contacted the current Admins of the Facebook Group regularly, to try to move things forward. We have offered compromise and interim solutions, and pursued informal contacts both as individuals and the from Committee as a whole. The Committee can see no sign from the unauthorised Facebook Group Admins of any serious intention to meet or discuss it as requested by members.
In the emergency meeting, members also asked what historical documents were available that confirm the status of the STAG Public Facebook Group. At that time the Committee had only had a limited time to search through the documentation handed over, but had found documents which contained decisions and statements made by previous STAG Committees, and individual statements made by current Admins of the STAG Public Facebook Group, confirming that the Facebook Group is a STAG asset under the stewardship of the STAG Committee.
Since the emergency meeting the Committee has had more time to search for, and obtain from other sources, further documents that answer some of the interesting questions members asked. These documents make the status of the STAG Public Facebook Group as a STAG asset even clearer. For example, they show that in 2017 the STAG Steering Group agreed its role in management and oversight of the STAG Public Facebook Group (with “administration by at least 4 nominated members of the Steering Group”). It is then clearly documented, in the minutes of the very first STAG Committee meeting held after STAG was constituted, that the STAG Steering Group handed over stewardship of the STAG Public Facebook Group to the STAG Committee. Some of the current unauthorised Admins of the Facebook Group were in both the STAG Steering group and the first STAG Committee when these actions/decisions were documented.
We have found no documents showing any objections when any of these statements or minuted decisions were made by the STAG Steering Group or previous STAG Committees, even though current unauthorised Admins of the STAG Public Facebook Group were Committee members at those times.
Because the Committee was taken by surprise when the STAG Public Facebook Group wasn’t handed over, our attempts to move things forward have, so far, been a bit unstructured and informal. It now seems very clear that this informal approach will not work, so the Committee has decided to take a more formal and step-by-step approach (necessary to properly fulfil the Committee’s legal obligations) which we will report on to members later, as appropriate..
Website
Previous Committees had for some time discussed updating the old STAG website but there were some technical barriers to doing this. The new Committee decided to create a completely new website from scratch, and this has been created and launched, at no cost to STAG. All news and updates, on the tree planting project for example, will be posted on the new website and it also contains documents like minutes of STAG meetings, so that it’s easier to find than in the folders of the Google drive. In the future, we hope to somehow link the new website to the old website.
Mark Brown asked if there were plans to archive the old Website (bequeathed by Mary Marshall) or transfer to the new? Woll answered that plans were being worked through to ensure the old website continued, with links from-and-to the new website.
Paul thanked Woll for his efforts to put STAG on a secure footing.
5
The Plaque (Helen McIlroy)
The design for the Plaque was passed by Sheffield Council’s S and R Committee yesterday. Looking at March (anniversary of publicaion of Lowcock) for unveiling. Apparently, the Council wants to keep this low-key.
6
Remaining threatened Core Investment Period Trees (Paul Selby)
Many members will remember that, when the street tree crisis ended in 2019, there were still 309 threatened trees that the Council and Amey still wanted to fell.
The Council and Amey tend to work very slowly, but in successive small steps over the 5 years to December 2024, the majority of the 309 trees on the majority of the roads had already been saved.
By this time last year, there were still 18 roads that the Council and Amey hadn’t resurfaced, where trees were still threatened. Namely:
- Banner Cross Road
- Dunkeld Road
- Thornsett Road
- Crescent Road
- Kenbourne Road
- St Ronan’s Road
- Woodstock Road
- Sandford Grove Road
- Steade Road
- Ladysmith Avenue
- Edgebrook Road
- Chippinghouse Road
- Sheldon Road
- Springhill Road
- Hunter House Road
- Ecclesall Road
- Oxford Street
- Cliffefield Road
The Council announced at that point that they were setting up a Working Group that would seek to resolve all the issues with trees on these roads. Specifically, the Working Group would include Councillors from the Wards each road was in, Amey and Council officials, independent Highways engineers from Mott Macdonald, street tree campaigners (ie myself and Christine King), and Sheffield Street Tree Partnership Group Chairperson, Nathan Edwards.
As ever, this group took a long time to establish, and the first introduction meeting didn’t occur until April.
There were then three proper meetings between May and July, talking specifically about the two Ecclesall Ward roads, namely Banner Cross Road and Dunkeld Road.
These three meetings were very collaborative. Mott Macdonald produced independent ideas which continued to save trees, while at the same time reducing lost parking, reducing the extreme large build outs, and were much more pragmatic.
As a consequence, the Council will soon be announcing the redesigned solutions for those two roads, and aiming to move to resurface those roads in the next six months.
The Working Group has now moved onto roads in the Nether Edge Ward. We will work on the 11 roads in this Ward between now and the Spring. We had the first meeting on Monday 24th November and a second meeting on Monday 1st December. The third and final meeting before Christmas was on Monday 8th December. At the three most recent meetings we worked on five of the roads, specifically Steade Road, Chippinghouse Road, Thornsett Road, Crescent Road and Sheldon Road.
All meetings were again very positive and collaborative, and again Mott Macdonald presented pragmatic solutions that minimised buildout size and minimised lost parking spaces on these roads.
At this stage, I’m confident that the outcomes for Steade Road, Chippinghouse Road, Thornsett Road and Cresent Road should satisfy all tree campaigners.
Sheldon Road was as the fifth road before Christmas because it is complicated. Paul has always thought, even back in 2016, that a minimum of four trees couldn’t be saved. The issues with a rapidly advancing Sooty Bark Disease of Sycamores on that road also complicate it further. This may necessitate a number of trees being felled. Paul noted that it will be interesting what solutions we all finally reach, as a consensus. He’s pretty confident of a sensible outcome, but does think it will need some explaining to street tree campaigners, by himself, to ensure everyone is content with the outcome.
In terms of Sheldon Road felling, there was a short discussion about the potential to do compensatory 3:1 replacement planting and the links to this being the “Bristol formula” that Christine King had suggested at the SSTP.
AOB
Mark Brown asked if there is any progress in finding a Trustee?
Paul responded that Alison Teal has approached one suitable person and is awaiting a response.
Meeting closed at 8.15