In the late 1800s, a local wealthy businessman called George Wostenholme was inspired by the wide tree lined streets he saw in Boston, USA. He set out to create something similar in Sheffield, and began purchasing land in the area that is now known as the “Kenwood Estate” in Nether Edge.
He established the road layout, with wide verges or pavements, and planted hundreds of young trees, mainly Lime Trees, in avenues along these roads. People then purchased the land and built houses along these tree lined roads.
Whilst the roads build before or subsequently in Nether Edge, Sharrow, Sharrowvale and Carter Knowle tended to have less street trees planted, there are notable exceptions, and overall, the NESST geographic area had 2282 street trees by the year 2020.
Sadly, over the course of the 20th and early 21st century, some of the street trees planted earlier died or needed to be removed, and were not always replaced. Particularly since the 1970s, there was an inexorable decline in the number of street trees in our area.
Things took a turn for the worse in August 2012, when Sheffield Council signed a 25 year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract with the private contractor Amey. The contract included an obligation for Amey to fell half of all Sheffield’s large mature street trees, replacing them with smaller species.
The full details of the local campaign can be read here.
During the period August 2012 to March 2018 around 150 of our local street trees were felled, mostly unnecessarily. However campaigners prevented 151 more from being felled which had been explicitly identified. Plus around 700 more would have been identified for felling at some point before the end of the contract, and now won’t be.