Philip Strafford, resident of an apartment at Middlewood Lodge, Middlewood, Sheffield, speaks to reporter Julia Armstrong about his concerns over trees that have been removed in the grounds of the building
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00:00 Hi, so I'm at Middlewood Lodge at the minute with Philip who lives in this lovely apartment.
00:09 Tell me why you're upset, what's happened recently at the apartments that's upset you?
00:15 So over the space of a year we've lost a number of trees on site as you can see behind me.
00:20 It's quite alarming that we've lost a number of trees. What's frustrating is this is a
00:26 heritage site and a conservation area and what I'm concerned about particularly is the
00:34 trees were homes to an abundance of wildlife. We had owls, we had squirrels, all sorts of
00:39 species of birds and their homes have now gone. And what's frustrating is it's the management
00:46 for the lodge who have just decided that they didn't like the trees and they wanted to get
00:51 rid of them. They said that they did a report by an arborist who said they could be removed
00:57 but this report was verbal so there's no actually physical report for any sort of accountability
01:05 as to why they should be removed. And what's more frustrating is that Sheffield City Council
01:08 agreed to it. They didn't even come on site, they didn't do any assessment of the trees
01:13 and there was no report given to them either so I think it's scandalous that this has happened
01:19 and I'm as a leaseholder, I do own my property, but as a leaseholder I have no say in what
01:23 goes on on site in my own home or outside my own home and as you can see I'm completely
01:29 now overlooked, those trees have gone so I've lost all of my sense of privacy now.