Harrogate Spring Water is to revert back to its original 2017 plan to expand its bottling plant — and will submit a new application soon that proposes how felled trees at Rotary Wood will be compensated for.

The company won outline planning permission to expand its premises on Harlow Moor Road by 5,500 sqm five years ago. It means the principle of development has been established but the finer details have not been agreed.

The approved 2017 plans involve the felling of some trees at Rotary Wood, a woodland behind its current site that was planted by The Rotary Club of Harrogate and local schoolchildren in the 2000s.

In January 2021 a high-profile reserved matters application that was 40% larger and looked to chop down more trees than had been agreed was turned down by Harrogate Borough Council's planning committee.

The application provoked a public backlash and generated a debate about how a large, successful businesses should operate in the era of climate change.

Compensation

To compensate for the loss of trees, the company offered to plant new ones, create scrubland and build a pond on private land behind RHS Harlow Carr.

But this was an offer that dismayed some councillors on the planning committee and local groups including Pinewoods Conservation Group.

Piers Forster, a professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds who lives in Harrogate published a co-authored report that said about five times more new woodland was needed to properly compensate for the loss of trees.

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Read more:

• Harrogate Spring Water: New details about how council makes money from bottled water plant


• Harrogate council open to selling Rotary Wood to Harrogate Spring Water

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Next steps

The company said in July 2021 that it was working on a brand new application and the old plan would be disregarded.

However, the company has now decided to go back to its original plan rather than going through the torturous process of starting from scratch.

But, as in 2021, it still will need councillors on the planning committee to approve a reserved matters application that deals with its appearance and crucially, how the destroyed trees at Rotary Wood will be compensated for.

The company is yet to publish exact details on how it will do this.

Consultation events

Harrogate Spring Water said in a statement that it is looking to achieve "net biodiversity gain" for the site, carry out a compensatory tree planting scheme and it will make the remaining part of Rotary Wood more accessible to the public.

A series of public consultation events will take place in June where people will get to have their say and shape the proposals.

The company said the plans would create 30 new jobs.

Richard Hall, managing director at Harrogate Spring Water, said: