Campaigners opposed to Harrogate Spring Water’s plans to expand its bottling plant have held two emergency meetings in the last 48 hours.

Harrogate Spring Water submitted revised plans for the scheme, which involve felling 500 trees, this month.

A consultation runs until November 15, which prompted the campaign group Save Rotary Wood to hastily convene meetings on Sunday and last night (October 28). The Stray Ferret attended last night’s gathering.

North Yorkshire Council’s short consultation period was widely criticised at the meeting for its brevity.

Some said it didn’t seem fair that Harrogate Spring Water took more than three years to resubmit its plans after its last application was rejected in 2021 and now groups and individuals have less than a month to comment on plans that have 672 associated documents on the council’s planning portal. 

You can view the documents if you type in reference number 6/05254/OUTMAJ here.

Currently, 603 respondents oppose the scheme and nine support it.

Leaflets going out

Save Rotary Wood plans to distribute 10,000 leaflets to homes in the next few days encouraging people to submit objections before the deadline.

Harrogate Spring Water, which is owned by French multinational Danone, already has outline planning permission, which means the principle of development has been established.

Its current reserved matters application deals with details, such as landscaping, appearance, scale, access and layout and the meeting heard objections must relate to these issues to be considered by councillors.

Biodiversity net loss, increased traffic and maintenance of the community woodland, which Harrogate Spring Water has pledged to create in mitigation for the lost trees, were cited as valid objections.

Harrogate Spring Water wants to fell about 500 trees in the Pinewoods at the back of its headquarters on Harlow Moor Road to create space to expand its bottling plant. 

Its latest plans include replacing the lost trees on a 6:1 ratio in the community woodland and at an unspecified other location.

North Yorkshire Council's planning committee is expected to consider the application shortly, possibly at its December meeting.

Matty Jacobs said replacing a public woodland with a privately owned one and a larger factory was “not adequate compensation”.

Sarah Gibbs, who protests at events dressed as a tree to draw attention to the campaign, said it was “greenwash” to see the issue simply in terms of tree numbers as it was about the loss of a mature wet woodland that was far more than the sum of its trees.

She said:

Harrogate Spring Water has said it has listened to concerns and its latest plans would create 50 jobs plus 20 more during construction.