Reply to Kevin Warnes' blog (Green Party)

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for your update.

In our opinion the consultation was clearly not wide enough.

You said 90% of trees would have died in the next 40 years. Could successive plantings and replanting over time have addressed the issues, why all of them right now? Wider consultation could have resulted in more ideas and would have made more people aware of the full impact of the actions. The process you use to justify your decision has failed people.

The rush to push this process through meant you did not seek out engagement but went with who showed up. As regards expert reports, where are the reports on air quality, wellbeing and natural heritage? It's hardly representative of the community to only ask village residents and not visitors and those who lived in the surrounding area too; who work, shop and have their children educated in the village.

It is scandalous that you stand by a decision which has so obviously not considered alternative views of people, alternative options and alternative approaches. You say there were no alternatives, but you only allowed people 3 options. In just 5 days we gained over 20,000 engagements with our social media links and over 370 survey responses. People feel disenfranchised. The council disregarded a petition led by the Saltaire Village Preservation Society that clearly involved more people than your consultation.

In just a few hours in Saltaire, we have received a variety of feedback, opinion and ideas. As a Green councillor why wait for people to go to a council website, to come to you in surgeries, why not use social media to crowdsource ideas and opinions. If you are serious about consulting, go to people in ways they engage and interact, as you will inevitably do when trying to get elected.

The rush towards a decision looks like it was a financial one, the risk of losing £700k - was it really at risk? Did you really scrutinise this enough? It seems many, not few, feel that they were not included in the conversation and that the council was going to do this no matter what people thought. It is so disappointing that you are not reviewing your actions in the light of the Saltaire Trees engagements - showing how a very small group of concerned citizens have been able to engage people in just a few days. For such a significant site and subject, how can you still defend the decision?

You can read Kevin Warnes' original blog post here: http://bradfordgreen.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/saltaire-trees-my-perspective.html?m=1