The review commissioned by Plymouth City Council (PCC) in order for them to learn lessons from the Armada Way tree felling fiasco is complete and the report has been published. It is damning.
The Armada Way Independent Learning Review (AWILR) panel was tasked with looking into the decision to approve the development of Armada Way and to immediately fell over 100 trees in the centre of Plymouth in March 2023.
They found systemic issues with PCC’s governance , transparency, community engagement and record keeping, and they heavily criticised senior management.
PCC has been given 18 recommendations, and the panel has called on them to do what they can to rebuild trust, which has been significantly damaged by this episode – trust between the council and residents, and within the council itself.
The STRAW (Save the Trees of Armada Way) campaign, which we started to try and save trees on Armada Way, and the subsequent legal challenges, have been vindicated, with all of the issues we raised shown to be valid concerns that the Council ought to have addressed.
Indeed, the panel endorsed the objections to the plan which originally hoped to fell all but 1 of the 137 trees, and the subsequent legal challenges brought, stating, “…the objectors who, by any reasonable assessment, had right and reason to pursue their complaints during the period of this review”.
The report was discussed by full council this week and while, we were optimistic that this review would spark some positive change in the council, the initial signs from those in leadership positions are not hopeful.
The urgent nature of the decision, which allowed the council to fell the trees at short notice with almost no scrutiny, was criticised. The panel wrote, “just because it had become urgent did not necessarily mean that the use of the Urgency procedure was the most appropriate course of action”. This was precisely one of the grounds of the legal challenge and something the Council never accepted was unlawful. The panel went on to find that a different approach would have “lead to greater transparency and trust. But having reached this unfortunate position, there were still other options available to the Council”.
The panel also criticised something else which we highlighted repeatedly throughout the legal proceedings, that the information shared by officers with elected members was misleading.
“The accuracy of the ‘Original’ report was paramount, not only so that the Leader could make an informed decision but to ensure that those who objected to the scheme could read it as unbiased and based on sound evidence. There were clear shortcomings in the accuracy, completeness and even-handedness of the report. In part this was a product of poor project management disciplines and poor practice in handling and reporting public responses. Some of these errors and omissions were later to become grounds for Judicial Review and Contempt challenges and lead to significant and unedifying amendments to witness statements.”
The review panel was tasked with highlighting areas for learning but were not given the responsibility of apportioning “blame or culpability”, so despite the damning conclusions, nobody at PCC will face any consequences for the reputation-trashing episode. No heads will roll.
Tracey Lee (the Chief Executive of PCC since 2012) has apologised but when asked by a journalist if she would take responsibility for the failings, which include more than £3.3 million of taxpayers’ money being wasted. Her response: “I think there’s a whole collective responsibility”. Meanwhile, the current leader, Cllr Evans, said that he would only take full responsibility for how the Council moves forward. Impressive leadership.
The cost of the Council’s failings is a conservative estimate, which does not include lost revenue as a result of disruption to the local economy.
Tracey Lee also played down the significance of the episode by mentioning that PCC was doing well in other areas such as the number of people who visit the museum. At a time when they should have been focusing on healing wounds, this comment felt out of place.
The panel’s report confirms what we all know that the way in which the council went about felling the trees made them look “underhand and untrustworthy”. This is something I hear from people regularly. The report states, “It is important that the council finds a means to rebuild trust, internally and externally, if it is going to maximise the benefit to its citizens”.
When asked whether Ms Lee or anyone from the council would be reaching out to STRAW members, in the spirit of healing and rebuilding trust, the answer was no.
The same tone was adopted by Cllr Evans at the council meeting when, instead of taking the first steps to rebuild trust, he took the opportunity to falsely imply that the £3.3m overspend is entirely my fault. He’s never one to miss a chance to play politics and score points, however inappropriate the moment, but I was surprised he was happy to show just how petty he can be in front of the panel who conducted the review, who have been professional throughout. It’s a pity that Cllr Evans is more interested in winning votes than winning trust and it is hard to see how the culture in the Council, where bullying and abuse appear acceptable, will change unless the leadership does too.
As a case in point, the action plan produced by PCC as a result of this £130,000 review, is completely devoid of the word trust.
The panel suggested that on future tree works, “Giving an ongoing voice, which has weight, to interest groups and individuals on public space proposals may be one way to help bring forward dialogue”. After the trees were felled, a Sheffield-style tree panel was proposed and unanimously recommended by councillors. In Sheffield, the Street Tree Panel and later Partnership, included the council, contractors and crucially the campaigners, and has been a successful way to help the community and council move forward productively after their horrific period of street tree felling.
Last week’s report revealed, however, that the recommendation for a tree panel was later rejected by a Cabinet member. He decided that an existing steering group, which as it stands, does not include any members of STRAW, is good enough for them.
You must question if lessons are really being learned. PCC have just launched a public consultation on a new massive road and park scheme, which we are told will involve significant tree loss but no details on the trees have been shared with the public, and worryingly, the project has never been raised with the steering group. There is clearly a long way to go.
The report said that the Armada Way team failed to properly assess the impact the project would have on the environment. While the scope of the review did not include determining the legality of the decision, the panel found that “the works undertaken on the night of 14 March were without the benefit of all permissions necessary”. The panel found that the Armada Way team had erroneously used Permitted Development Rights which meant they could avoid going through the planning process.
The panel commented:
“Informality and a lack of grip regarding environmental regulation especially in relation to the EIA process is a learning point.”
Going on to say:
“Trees in public spaces are an important and precious element of our urban landscapes. With the impact of climate change, existing trees will need help to continue to thrive and new trees will need careful planning to ensure adaptability and resilience. An enhanced focus on the value of our urban trees is recommended ensuring they can continue to provide visual amenity, support biodiversity and facilitate wellbeing. This will require ongoing recognition and respect by public bodies, developers and communities, as well as the resources to enable this to happen.”
So it was disappointing to hear Cllr Evans state in Council that “this wasn’t about trees”. Of course there were other issues raised by the behaviour of PCC throughout the debacle but a lot of the problems stemmed from a total disregard for trees that got in the way of their vision and a refusal to budge even when thousands of Plymouth residents made clear that they did care.
It didn’t end there – there was very strong criticism of the council’s lack of support for staff by senior managers. The report also states, “The extent to which the Council kept the impending original decision and subsequent mobilisation out of the public domain appears in conflict with the Nolan Principles.” This was something we raised in a Contempt of Court case last year, specifically with regards to a misleading email sent from the then Monitoring Officers’ to my solicitor. While the judge found her excuse plausible, the AWILR panel appeared less sympathetic.
The report states
“The subsequent legal challenges exposed inaccuracy and poor record keeping, both in the mainstream management of the project and, even more seriously, at the senior staff/Councillor interface”. And “It is worthy of note that in the PCC draft communications plan for the 14th March, the advice was that ‘NB If asked when it starts by media will have to say when as it is happening that evening’. This is a quite different position to that adopted with the complainants.”
When I started our campaign, it was in large part to try and give people a voice, given the apparent lack of consultation. We spoke to huge numbers of people to ask them what they thought about the plan; the vast majority were not supportive. Limited public consultation had been done back in 2018 and the panel said that not re-consulting was “unwise”. Adding that “The pandemic and resultant ‘lockdowns’ and working from home changed people’s perspectives of their precious green spaces.”
The panel found little evidence that comments by the public or stakeholders received during this consultation had altered the design in any way. They also found that the plans did not make it clear that PCC planned to remove so many trees, something else we were saying at the time.
The panel criticised the “Meaningful Community Engagement” consultation that the council conducted in February 2023 as a result of our petition of 10,000 signatures, describing it as a “hollow gesture” and deemed it to be “too late and too short to be meaningful”.
The AWILR report recommends elevating the importance of engagement and consultation and says,
“Inadequate and ill-considered communication and engagement was one of the core reasons why the Armada Way project took the unfortunate course it did. Much of the design was ‘fixed’ before the initial consultation in 2018.”
The panel found that the council were dismissive of the issue of the trees, which they found to be concerning, given it was the “key issue of contention”. The panel said that they gave the “impression that trees are dispensable”.
The report also states that, following the Feb 2023 consultation, the council were responding to comments on a wide range of elements of the design, even at a late stage, “but appeared to play down the voices seeking further tree retention”. Incredibly, despite the overwhelming majority of respondents opposing the plan, primarily due to the tree loss, not a single extra tree was planned to be saved as a result of this consultation or the petition. The council had obviously doubled down and weren’t going to give us an inch.
At the local election which followed the felling, the Conservatives lost control of the council, considered to be in large part as a result of the backlash. Plymouth Labour took advantage of the situation throughout our campaign by making the right noises about the trees but did nothing to prevent the implementation of the plan or acknowledge the Council’s failures. At one point, in order to help a Labour candidate win a bi-election, Cllr Evans (the then opposition) even said he wouldn’t cut down the trees when being interviewed on BBC Radio Devon. In the run-up to the 2023 local election, they made hollow claims that they would preserve all the remaining trees and once in power, they changed their minds, instead deciding some would be translocated, at enormous public expense and with little chance of success. Once in power, they defended the actions of the previous administration throughout the legal process, dragging it out for months longer than it needed to take and Cllr Evans, the now leader, criticised local people who had opposed the felling by referring to them as unable to understand words over one syllable.
Since the trees were felled, the Plymouth Labour MP, Luke Pollard, has also tried to make political capital of what happened by claiming to be the most vocal opposition to the plan to fell the trees. When asked for help at the time, though, he was dismissive, saying it was a matter for the council. We know at least some Labour councillors knew what was planned for that night well in advance and since Mr Pollard has refused to confirm that he didn’t, I have to assume he knew too – but they all kept schtum.
At Monday’s meeting, Cllr Evans attempted to twist the advice from the panel into meaning that Council leaders should stand by tough decisions when they are made for the right reason, come what may. But that is not what the panel suggested. They recommended Councillors take “responsibility” for their decisions. That can and must mean acknowledging mistakes, which PCC have failed to do throughout this debacle. Cllr Evans also suggested that giving in to the “loudest voices” in the future would not be happening, seemingly however reasonable or right those voices are.
The AWILR report is not ambiguous on Plymouth Labour’s longstanding position on the development. They might have used our campaign to their advantage to point the finger at the Conservatives as the ones responsible, but we now know that the Armada Way development had had cross-party support for years and years. And in fact, it was Plymouth Labour who had signed it off in 2020. The current Conservative leader was grown up enough to apologise unreservedly for their part in what happened.
Personally, I think that had Plymouth Labour not used this issue to play political games, were more honest about their involvement and support for the scheme, and accepted that what was done was unlawful, the whole debacle would have been much less painful, drawn out and expensive.
The report stated:
“When issues came to a head, senior politicians ducked and senior officers failed to anticipate the media frenzy and the impact of (anticipated) legal action. The court proceedings exposed the frailties in rigour and discipline, leading to David Elvin KC, in his JR Judgement to comment that the council’s conduct was “highly unsatisfactory” and revealed “the lack of transparency in its procedures, in its inadequate compliance with its duty of candour to the court and raised issues about the credibility of some of its witnesses.”
So will any lessons be learned?
While I’m pleased that the report has exposed the severe and fare reaching failings of the Council, and has proved how justified our concerns and criticism was, it is now over to the council to act on it.
The report said, “It is apparent that there are wounds still to be healed for those individuals most directly impacted. There are pockets of regret, remorse, guilt, blame and defiance”. I am sympathetic to many of the staff at the council and much was rightfully made of their wellbeing in the report. Not so much for ours, unfortunately. The panel spoke to 35 people in total, only two of whom were “objectors”, myself and my barrister, who reached out and offered his time free of charge. In my opinion, this report reflects this imbalance. Almost nothing was made of how this episode impacted us. Online trolls have been conflated with well-meaning meaning courteous campaigners. It has been painful, stressful, expensive and traumatising for many of the STRAW supporters. We were abused, threatened, trolled and insulted by our own local authority. Two and a half years on, we are left bruised and disillusioned, and certainly more cynical than we were in 2022. Healing will require genuine change, a coming-together and time.
Sadly, my expectation that any coming-together is on the cards is low; no one has reached out yet. It is also hard to be optimistic that a significant attitude or culture change within the senior management and the longstanding councillors is likely, particularly with all the same old faces in place.
