Sheffield City Council will not be challenging the forestry commission’s order to fell over a 1000 trees in Wyming Brook nature reserve in the Peak District.
The felling will go ahead as planned despite over 2500 signatures on a petition calling for the project to be suspended.
The petition creator, who posts anonymously, said the nature reserve is at risk of becoming a “post-apocalyptic landscape.”
The petition also said: “The project is deeply flawed, undemocratic and opaque.
“When we take a closer look at the rationale for taking a wrecking ball to this community and heritage asset, it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.”
The Forestry Commission has issued the council a Statutory Plant Health Notice with the aim to destroy any infected trees to prevent it from spreading. When issued this, the council is bound to act on it.
The trees are infected with Phytophthora ramorum, a fungus-like and incurable disease.
Marieanne Elliot, Green Party councillor and spokesperson for the Communities, Parks and Leisure Policy Committee, said: “These woodlands have a lot of heritage and biodiversity, people feel like no one is acting to save those woodlands.
“It is not at all the council’s or the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust’s decision to fell these trees, they are doing so out of obligation.”
She added: “There also isn’t any money from the government to support these fellings which are very costly to the council.
“To say the council is just going round chopping down trees would be false.”
