Harrogate residents remain unconvinced about Harrogate Spring Water‘s plans to fell trees in Rotary Wood to expand its bottling plant.
The company, which is now owned by the French firm Danone, held a three-hour consultation event yesterday at Harrogate’s Crown Hotel.
It was a chance for people to make suggestions on the design and landscaping of the proposed extension. The company said the responses would influence its final design.
Since 2017, it has had outline planning permission to expand its production facilities on its site on Harlow Moor Road that would involve felling trees.
It is now putting together a ‘reserved matters’ application which will detail how the new building will look, how the surrounding area will be landscaped and crucially, where new trees will be be replanted.
The Stray Ferret went along to speak to attendees and representatives of Danone, including Harrogate Spring Water’s managing director Richard Hall.
Passionate views
Throughout the evening there was a slow trickle of curious people looking at display boards that offered background on the plans and reasons why the company feels it needs to expand. The boards are available to view online here.
Some saw the event as a chance to passionately tell Mr Hall what they feel are the wrongs of the company, including the merits of plastic bottles.
Sarah Gibbs has been a long-term campaigner against the expansion and often dons her trademark tree costume. She said:
“My stance is we are in a climate emergency. We need to start acting like it. Why do we need bottled water?”.
Rotary Wood
Rebecca Maunder campaigns for the environment in the Harlow Hill area.
She believes it’s not a certainty that the trees will be lost if a case can be made that any replacement tree planting proposals are insufficient.
She suggested the company should instead look to expand its premises in different ways.
“They should build it on their car park.”
Ms Maunder said Rotary Wood “belongs to all of us” and is worried the business will look to further encroach into the woodland in the future.
She added:
“In three years they might want more space.”
How the site currently looks from above.
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Complex issues
When Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee considered the company’s last bid to expand in January 2021, it was for some, a simple battle between the profits of a private business and the environment.
Richard Hall said to frame the debate in these terms is unfair and is “more complex” than what is sometimes presented.
When asked if he is personally concerned about the effects of climate change. He said:
“I think that everyone is thinking about the climate. I’d like to behave in a way that takes into account the future”.
Mr Hall confirmed the company still wants to plant trees in a private field behind RHS Harlow Carr, as it proposed last time, but this is “not enough” and it wants to plant more.
Mr Hall said they have been in talks with some landowners but are yet to come to any agreements.
Last time many objectors, including local climate scientist Professor Piers Forster, were unhappy that the felled trees would be replaced elsewhere with saplings, which are much less effective at soaking up CO2 emissions.
Mr Hall said the company is looking into how the new trees can ensure a “biodiversity net gain”.
On Rebecca Maunder’s car park suggestion, Mr Hall said it was not possible due to a sustainable drainage system underneath.
Sadness
Terry Knowles is a member of Rotary Club of Harrogate and chaired the group’s environmental committee from 2000 until 2015.
Mr Knowles is a key reason the trees were planted there in the first place, which began in 2005 and took around four years.
Terry Knowles inspecting the boards
Speaking in a personal capacity, he said he felt sadness that some trees that he planted with local schoolchildren, who are now adults, could be lost.
He said:
“Bottled water is not an environmental product. The last permission was in 2017 and a lot has changed since then.”
