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16
Apr
Celebrities criticise Harrogate Spring Water as D-Day looms
Dames Joanna Lumley and Judi Dench are among a group of celebrities who have criticised Harrogate Spring Water’s plans to fell hundreds of trees in the Pinewoods.
North Yorkshire Council’s Harrogate and Knaresborough planning committee will meet tomorrow (April 17) to decide whether to grant the company, which is part of French multinational Danone, permission to expand its bottling plant.
More than 98% of people who have commented on the application on the council’s website have objected. But council planning officer John Worthington has recommended the Liberal Democrat-controlled six-person planning committee approves it.
Opponents received a boost today when a raft of celebrities and experts backed their cause.
Dame Joanna Lumley said:
To cut down so many trees planted by children to develop a bottling plant is dreadful in so many ways. Other locations could, and should, be considered if additional capacity is truly needed. This 20-year-old forest carrying the hopes of the next generation cannot be replaced. Only a swift U-turn can save the face of a company whose green credentials are already looking pretty suspect. Do a great right, do a little wrong and let those trees stand and grow, let children believe and trust in big business and in decisions made by grownups.
Dame Judi Dench reiterated her opposition to the plans, saying:
At a time when the country is talking so urgently about biodiversity loss, climate pressure and the need to protect nature close to where people live, it is deeply troubling that a healthy community woodland could be treated as disposable. Once mature trees and established habitat are lost, they are not simply replaced by promises. The value of a place like Rotary Wood lies not only in the number of trees on a map, but in the life it already supports and in the relationship local people have built with it.
Jonathon Porritt
'Danone’s pledge is ecologically illiterate'
Actor and RSPB ambassador Samuel West said he was “pleased to lend my voice to the huge local outcry”, adding:
“Growing a factory by destroying biodiversity is not an equation we should want to solve. We must protect our natural spaces, and all creatures - great and small.”
Broadcaster and entomologist Dr George McGavin said: “A well-established woodland like Rotary Wood isn’t just ‘trees’, it’s an entire city of life, built over decades. You cannot demolish that city and replace it with 3,000 saplings and call it ‘forest positive’. Danone’s pledge is ecologically illiterate.”
Environmentalist Jonathon Porritt said: “Rotary Wood is precisely the kind of living carbon store and biodiversity refuge we need to protect. If Danone wants credibility on climate and nature, the simplest, most powerful step it can take is to leave these trees standing.”
Harrogate Spring Water's headquarters on Harlow Moor Road.
Community woodland
Harrogate Spring Water plans to fell 500 trees in Rotary Wood, which is a 20-year-old community woodland planted by schoolchildren in the Pinewoods, to expand its bottling plant.
The Stray Ferret offered Harrogate Spring Water the chance to write an opinion column giving its view on how the bottling plant could benefit the Harrogate area. But the company said it was “not be able to accept” the opportunity at this stage.
However, it has previously said the project would create 50 jobs and pump £17 million a year into the northern economy.
It has also pledged to plant 3,000 trees to compensate for the loss of the 500 in Rotary Wood. However, the new woodland would not be in public ownership, unlike Rotary Wood.
You can read more about the key issues at the planning meeting here.
What do you think? Have you say in the comments section below or email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.
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