Independent review into street tree felling to focus on governance and decision-making
Plymouth City Council has appointed three experts to an independent learning review panel charged with investigating "from a governance and legal perspective" a controversial decision to fell more than a hundred trees in the city centre.
The panel includes Jeanette McGarry, who was previously monitoring officer at the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames and West Lyndsey District Council.
She has extensive experience in carrying out reviews, specifically looking at governance, legal services and decision-making.
Plymouth began work to cut down the trees on the shopping street Armada Way on 14 March 2023 as part of a redevelopment programme. However, work was halted by a last-minute injunction secured by local campaigners.
The decision led to the resignation of Conservative council leader, Richard Bingley, and prompted two separate legal challenges, which the High Court has since dismissed.
The Labour councillor who replaced Bingley as leader, Tudor Evans, decided to scrap the previous administration's plans for Armada Way.
Evans also pledged to commission the independent review, which is moving forward now that litigation regarding the decision has concluded.
David Williams and Sue Foster have also been appointed to the panel.
Williams is the former chief executive of Portsmouth City Council, Gosport Borough Council and Guildford Council, and has experience in leading major regeneration projects.
Foster is a former strategic director who has worked in a number of local authorities, including Hackney, Lambeth, and Kensington and Chelsea Councils, leading areas such as planning, place, regeneration and neighbourhoods.
The panel will consider the facts relating to the development and approval of the original scheme.
Once concluded, it will provide learning outcomes from which improvements to procedures and processes can be identified, particularly in relation to governance, decision making and the management of the original scheme as a major project, according to the council.
The panel will specifically look at:
- The approach taken by the council in preparing the original decision and associated documentation
- Details of the decision-making processes from a governance and legal perspective
- Whether a sufficient consultation process was undertaken and the extent to which feedback was incorporated into the plans for the original scheme
- The eventual implementation of the original decision and the events surrounding it
- Recording officer decision-making processes and actions
- The impact of the original scheme on the local environment, to include reasons why an environmental impact assessment was not undertaken prior to the original decision
- The financial implications of the events and circumstances arising from the original decision and the implementation of the original scheme, including the costs directly to the council.
The review is expected to run for three months.
Adam Carey
