When Harrogate Spring Water first drew up plans to expand its bottling plant on Harlow Moor Road in 2016, few people would have predicted that the firm would still be battling to build from the blueprints nine years later.

Yet the ongoing saga of the water company’s expansion has been one of the major local stories of 2025, and it looks set to continue well into 2026.

At the heart of the matter is a conflict between two world views – one that prioritises economic development and jobs, and the other that claims to value the environment more highly. As one campaigner said: "There are no jobs on a dead planet".

Harrogate Spring Water says that expanding its bottling plant is essential if it is to meet demand and fulfil the brand’s global potential.

It also holds out the prospect of 50 new permanent jobs, and 20 more temporary ones during the construction phase.

Cutting down trees

But the factor that quickly put the brakes on the development is that building it would require 500 trees to be cut down in Rotary Wood, the area of the Pinewoods planted 20 years ago with the help of local schoolchildren – now adults – to mark the centenary of Rotary International.

Harrogate Spring Water says it will replace the trees at a rate of six to one, with many of the 3,000 new saplings growing on a plot adjacent to the factory grounds.

But campaigners argue that even this rate of replacement does not make up for cutting down near-mature woodland, and insist the environmental costs outweigh the benefits. They also point out that some of the trees planted in mitigation will be elsewhere, and will not be available to be enjoyed as a community amenity, as Rotary Wood currently is.

The issue has aroused strong feelings, and Harrogate Spring Water’s reserved matters planning application attracted more than 1,000 objections, compared with just 12 comments in favour.

Trading blows

Harrogate Spring Water has painted itself as a “small, local business”, but that claim has been consistently ridiculed by campaigners, who point out that it is owned by Danone, a multinational food and drink giant with more than £20 billion in annual world sales.

The Pinewoods Conservation Group (PCG) referred Harrogate Spring Water to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), forcing it to drop its ‘since 1571’ strapline when the ASA said it was “likely to mislead”, because it gave the impression that the company had been in existence since that time.

The date 1571 actually refers to the ‘discovery’ of Harrogate’s unique mineral water. Harrogate Spring Water was actually founded in 2002.

The PCG also complained about the company’s ‘bottled at source’ claim, which it said was dubious, since Harrogate Spring Water extracts some of its water from a borehole far removed from its premises, and is in the process of laying a pipeline to another borehole even further afield, in Killinghall – over a mile and a half away.

The ASA referred this complaint to Trading Standards.

As if to return the shot, Harrogate Spring Water hired a polling company that produced a survey claiming more than 70% of Harrogate residents had a positive impression of its plans.

Campaigners then produced their own poll, by local firm Suffrago, suggesting that 86% of Harrogate residents disagreed with the proposed bottling plant expansion.

Company bosses urged campaigners to look at the “big picture”, but campaigners said it was obscured by plastic waste and chopped-down trees.

Decision deferred

The reserved matters planning application – which decides on the details of the development, not on whether it should be built – was to be finally decided by North Yorkshire Council’s planning committee at a meeting of at the end of October.

The outcome started to look predictable when the council case officer urged councillors ahead of the meeting to approve the application.

In the event, though, councillors kicked the can down the road, supporting a proposal by committee chair Cllr Chris Aldred to defer a decision pending more information.

Days later, campaigners regrouped, rallied by Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon. Mr Gordon has long been opposed to the expansion plans, and he spoke to a receptive audience at a meeting in the Green Hut on Harlow Hill, a short walk from Harrogate Spring Water’s HQ.

Planning permission has already been granted in principle for the bottling plant extension – the current application concerns secondary matters – but some in the room insisted it never should have been.

Not over yet

But Mr Gordon pointed out that even if permission is granted, there would be a six-week window when the owner of Rotary Wood, North Yorkshire Council, would have to invite bids for the land, since it has been declared an asset of community value (ACV).

That would potentially enable community campaigners to raise the funds to buy the wood, pulling the rug from beneath Harrogate Spring Water.

But he warned:

Councillors deferred the matter pending more information, specifically concerning the strength of commitments to mitigate the ecological impact, and the absence of a Section 106 legal agreement stating what Harrogate Spring Water must pay or do to compensate the community for the development.

Once that information has been submitted, the case will be up for discussion once more – presumably sometime in the 10th year after the whole scheme was first mooted.