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31
Dec 2021
No.3: Harrogate Spring Water's bid to expand in the Pinewoods
In this article, which is part of a series on the 15 stories in the Harrogate district that shaped 2021, we look at the controversy surrounding Harrogate Spring Water's expansion plans.
January saw one of the most controversial planning applications in Harrogate for years.
Harrogate Spring Water applied to expand its bottling plant from 0.77 hectares to 0.94 hectares, which would have meant destroying public woodland planted by local families in the area of Pinewoods known as Rotary Wood.
To compensate, the company offered to replant trees, create scrubland and build a pond on private land behind RHS Harlow Carr.
But the idea of felling trees to create more plastic bottles generated anger and triggered a wider debate around how businesses should operate in the age of climate change.
Articles appeared in the national press and there was high-profile intervention from TV presenter Julia Bradbury, who urged the company to think again.
Harrogate Spring Water's headquarters.
Hundreds of people watched a livestream of Harrogate Borough Council planning committee when it voted on the application on January 26 — considerably more than the usual 20 or 30 viewers for a council meeting.
They heard passionate interjections from councillors and residents opposing the plans, as well as representatives of Harrogate Spring Water saying the expansion was needed to grow a thriving local business and that felled trees would be replaced on a 2-to-1 basis.
Read more:
- Harrogate Spring Water to submit fresh plan for Pinewoods bottling plant
- Harrogate Spring Water blames pandemic as profits fall sharply
'Not just any wood'
Sam Gibbs, the Conservative councillor for Valley Gardens, called Rotary Wood “not just any wood” and said he had spoken to many local residents who were “confused, upset, or angry” about the application.
Neil Hind, chair of Pinewoods Conservation Group, a charity that preserves the Pinewoods, said the “world has changed” since covid, which “has shown the importance of our green spaces”.
In the end, eight councillors on the council's 12-person planning committee voted to refuse the plans, and four abstained.
After the meeting, Conservative councillor Jim Clark said he hoped the debate around the bottling plant had shown that local issues can be “at the forefront of climate change”.
What happened next?
Campaigners, such as Harrogate woman Sarah Gibbs, who had dressed as a tree outside the council offices each week to protest against the plans, were jubilant. But the vote wasn't the end of the matter.
Harrogate Spring Water signalled its intention to submit fresh expansion plans.
James Cain, managing director, said in July.
The company already has outline permission dating back to 2016 to expand its bottling plant, but the company said it was working on a completely new application and the old application would be disregarded.
But several months on, no new planning application has been submitted.
Organisations such as Pinewoods Conservation Group and the Rotary Club, which planted the trees in Rotary Wood, are still awaiting Harrogate Spring Water's next move.
A spokesperson for Harrogate Spring Water said:
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