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30
Sept
‘Outraged and appalled’: Campaigners prepare to resume battle with Harrogate Spring Water
Campaigners are drawing up battle plans after Harrogate Spring Water announced it will appeal the decision to refuse its factory expansion.
In April, North Yorkshire Council rejected the company’s plans to fell 500 trees in the Pinewoods to allow its factory on Harlow Moor Road to be extended.
Richard Hall, managing director of Harrogate Spring Water, which is owned by French multinational Danone, confirmed yesterday (September 29) it will appeal the decision.
The council must now decide whether to contest the potentially costly appeal by taking on Harrogate Spring Water at a hearing held by the government's Planning Inspectorate.
The Red Rebels from Extinction Rebellion Harrogate at the planning meeting.
Save Rotary Wood campaigner Sarah Gibbs, who spoke against the plans when North Yorkshire Council’s Harrogate and Knaresborough planning committee turned down the plans in April, said:
Though I’m not surprised, I am outraged and appalled at the continued disregard Harrogate Spring Water/Danone has for people and planet.
Richard Hall talks about being ‘good citizens’ yet they now want to attempt to override our councillors along with the thousands of locals who objected to these plans. It’s clear that profit is the priority.
No-one seems to be mentioning the clear fact that if the decision is made to override the councillors after all the community objections and asset of community value, then it truly demonstrates that democracy is dead. Because what is the actual point in any of it if one person can just decide to override it all if the price is right.
HSW expansion artist impression
'Wrong decision'
A spokesperson for Pinewoods Conservation Group, a charity that protects the 96-acre woodland in which the trees would be felled, said “pursuing a scheme that would sacrifice this woodland is the wrong decision for this location and our community”.
They questioned the merits of Harrogate Spring Water’s pledge to plant 3,000 trees to offset the loss of 500 trees at a ratio of 6 to 1:
Replacement planting cannot provide an immediate substitute for established woodland, its biodiversity or the value people place on it. Questions about the location, accessibility and long-term protection of replacement provision remain central, alongside concerns about additional traffic, noise and lighting. The claimed economic benefits should not be treated as outweighing these lasting environmental and community costs.
The spokesperson also criticised Harrogate Spring Water for announcing its appeal plans to the media first, and urged the company to reconsider its decision to appeal.
'Decision should be respected'
Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, was among those who objected to the application, which was then rejected by the council’s Lib Dem-controlled Harrogate and Knaresborough planning committee.
Mr Gordon said:
I warned when the planning committee refused this application that we had to remain vigilant, and sadly today proves why. Local councillors looked at the evidence, heard from more than 1,000 residents who objected, and made the right call.
Danone may not like that decision, but it was a democratic one, and it should be respected. A new two-acre plantation is not a like-for-like swap for a decades-old woodland that local people planted and love.
Tom Gordon MP
Councillor Mike Schofield, a member of the Greens and Independents group on North Yorkshire Council whose Harlow & St Georges division includes Harrogate Spring Water’s headquarters, said the appeal raised the prospect of disruption on the roads for people living in the area.
He added:
Residents have made their views about the loss of this wood abundantly clear. This is not in the interest of the neighbourhood. It’s all take with Harrogate Spring Water. They want to take the trees that people enjoy and plant them elsewhere. It's a stretch to call that compensation.
You can read an interview in which Richard Hall defends Harrogate Spring Water's plans here.
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