Don’t call Sheffield tree campaigners fanatics | Letters

Tree campaign groups across Sheffield have been at pains to garner expert inputs to substantiate their very clear arguments against the Sheffield chainsaw massacre (Letters, 29 November). The Woodland Trust is a longstanding critic of the Sheffield "Streets Ahead" programme and its epic and disastrous plans for street tree "management". Equally, the Sheffield Wildlife Trust has not been shy about its deep reservations. More recently, the Arboricultural Association has felt compelled to take a position. It is insulting to condemn them as "fanatics".

Campaigners do not advocate saving every tree and have a clear position on the removal of the dead and the dangerous. Yet we live in a post-truth, post-factual world. Perhaps then we should be unsurprised when finding some rot and a little deadwood are being cast in the way of constructive dialogue.