Councillor calls on Harrogate Spring Water to submit fresh plansHarrogate Spring Water expansion plans: Managing director and MP clashTom Gordon MP opposes Harrogate Spring Water’s expansion plansBoost for Harrogate Spring Water’s expansion plansHarrogate Spring Water boss: ‘We have listened and we are ready to proceed’Sunday Picture Quiz Answers: June 15Editor’s Pick of the Week: Flying debris at Tesco, tree protests and New Park news

With its roundabouts, belching traffic and building sites, few would claim New Park to be the loveliest suburb of Harrogate.

But it could have been renamed News Park this week due to its constant appearances on the Stray Ferret — not all for good reasons.

On Friday, we revealed how contractors grinding tree stumps at the Tesco site somehow propelled a lump of concrete through the window of a house on Electric Avenue.

Work on the nearby Ripon Road site where the charity Harrogate Skills 4 Living is building supported living flats has also not gone entirely smoothly. The charity said this week it hopes the flats will be up by Christmas after partially-built apartments on the site were recently demolished.

Elsewhere at the ‘crossroads of North Harrogate’, as New Park has been dubbed (by me), plans to build 135 homes off Skipton Road look set to be approved and, in perhaps the only New Park news to be celebrated this week, the local primary school was rated ‘good’ by Ofsted.

Good news was, however, plentiful elsewhere. You could barely move in Harrogate town centre last Saturday night because the Beam Light Festival was so popular. And Knaresborough Tractor Run, that infectious parade of joy, attracted a record 401 tractors and raised £27,500 for Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Drone photographer Colin Corker joined me at the start and then hotfooted it around the route to capture some amazing footage. Check this out.

 

Channel 4 captured the somewhat earthier footage of a room of people squabbling when it attended the parish meeting in Ripon called to discuss the cathedral’s plans to build an annexe.

Our man on the ground in Ripon, Tim Flanagan, sent this photo of Channel 4’s chief correspondent Alex Thomson with tree campaigner Jenni Holman alongside the veteran beech tree at risk of being felled.

Knaresborough Town Council was unusually convivial on Monday night, but there was plenty of crackle in the room when Harrogate Spring Water managing director Richard Hall, flanked by helpers, fielded questions for almost 90 minutes on the company’s plans to expand its bottling plant, which would involve felling 450 trees.

A resolution to this saga seems some way off.

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Stray Views: I can suggest only two solutions to Harrogate’s traffic congestion
Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district.
It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Dear Editor,

I read repeatedly of North Yorkshire Council councillors and others stating that recent consultations on Harrogate’s traffic congestion have rejected any road building projects and instead have supported more active travel schemes as the preferred solution. [Council quashes hopes of west Harrogate bypass]

Whilst I do not have a copy of the consultations to refer back to, my memory is that there never was a question along the lines of  “Would you like to see further bypasses built? ”. The questions were more vague and designed to obtain the preferred council outcome. For example “Would you support the encouragement of more active travel?”. It is almost impossible to say “No” to such a question. The health benefits alone make “Yes” the only sensible answer.

But active travel will not remove Harrogate’s congestion at anytime in the near future, or even the medium term. The station gateway as originally proposed would not have improved the journey from, for example, Oatlands to Asda nor the journey back with a week’s shopping – wobbling up Leeds Road on a bicycle!

I can suggest only two solutions to Harrogate’s traffic congestion – one would be to complete the bypass around Harrogate, on a route that avoided sensitive areas of countryside. The other would be to ban all non-electric vehicles and all large cars from journeys into and within Harrogate. This second solution would need to be coupled with a scheme to provide small electric vehicles to all residents at a much subsidised cost (which would be demonstrably cheaper than building a bypass!), together with 2 or 3 Park and Ride schemes.

We could be pioneers! Think of Harrogate leading the way and being ahead of other towns in its innovative approach to reducing traffic congestion.

Yours

Andrew Dodd, Harrogate

I would like to add my support to the letter condemning the proposed removal of large numbers of mature trees in order to be able to increase production of Harrogate Spring Water. [Stray Views: Harrogate Spring Water plans a ‘total tree wash’]
Water in plastic bottles has a place in emergency situations such as the war in Gaza or Ukraine but there is no justification for it in this Country. Convenient it may be, but necessary it is not, and certainly not at the expense of the felling of mature trees.
Michael Pattinson, Harrogate

 

We’ve also had a number of emails from readers getting in touch with us after we ran a story about the new parking payment system at Harrogate District Hospital, run by private firm Parkingeye.  Harrogate hospital defends criticism of new parking payment system. We will be doing a follow up story including some of your experiences this week. Get in touch with your views contact@thestrayferret.co.uk. 

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Stray Views: Harrogate Spring Water plans a ‘total tree wash’
Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.
Harrogate Spring Water state loudly on their website: “It is our role to take care of our natural environment.”  They then make great play of their plastic bottles being fully recyclable.  And yet, and yet.
The Stray Ferret’s article [Harrogate Spring Water plans reignite debate on trees and plastic] shows HSW aim to expand at the expense of 450 trees planted by children some 20 or 25 years ago.  In return, they have arranged to plant some more trees somewhere else.
So: it seems they think that simply by virtue of trees being planted somewhere else that CO2 will be absorbed and stored maximally, instantly, regardless that the new trees will be smaller and younger and take years to establish and grow to the extent of those to be lost.  It is as if there is no difference in the rate CO2 is absorbed and sequestered between old and young trees.
Likewise, it seems they think that “biodiversity” will magically re-materialise in a jiffy.   It is as if there is no difference between an area where lots of trees have just been planted and actual habitats and ecosystems which may have take decades, centuries or even millennia to develop.
It’s all the same thing to Harrogate Spring Water: everything is equivalent, or at least as good.  Immediately.  And how can they even be 100% certain that the new sites of tree planting will never be touched again, given that those places are owned by someone other than HSW?
Shame on Harrogate Spring Water.  This is Total Tree Wash.  If they really cared about our “natural environment”, then they would stop distracting us from the fact that the world really doesn’t need more plastic bottles, recyclable or otherwise.  Even assuming a plastic bottle finds its way to a recycling plant, plastic cannot be recycled endlessly anyway so it pollutes our “natural environment” (e.g. sea; rivers and animals including us) for hundreds of years (and maybe forever) in the end.
Perhaps they should expand by creating teams to educate the public about more sustainable ways of supplying bottled water and/or developing other materials that would carry water without polluting anything.  Or they could simply stop selling bottled water.
Friedy Luther, Spofforth

Litter bin removal is rubbish

Walking from Harrogate through the Dragon Road car parks towards Bilton on the Nidderdale Greenway, it was disappointing to see five waste bins have now been removed from use.

There is now no general waste bin on the conference centre exhibitors off site Dragon Road car park.

Rubbish is strewn along the Nidderdale Greenway footpath, shopping trolleys over the railway fencing, street lights are out on both the Dragon Road car parks and along the Nidderdale Greenway footpath.

The first bin was located just before the Nidderdale Greenway passes over the railway line, and then another immediately on the other side of the railway line!

Likewise upon reaching the Woodfield Road / Dene Park junction at the Woodfield Park playing fields entrance, there was another pair of bins, one on either side of the Woodfield Road!

What thought has been put into removing existing bins, locating the news one and why the abhorrent OTT  dalek design fabricated from plastic, when the simple metal “stand” seen in use would suffice all round!

North Harrogate Resident

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Wonderful Harrogate panto

Our 40-something son Dan has been over from the States for a few days and expressed a wish to see the pantomime.

The three of us went to Harrogate Theatre’s Dick Whittington and were not disappointed. It’s a treat for all ages, with great sets, music, comedy, dancing and costumes. And the best Dame I’ve seen in ages.

I urge you all to book now!

Barbara Coultas, Harrogate

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

Campaigners to protest at Harrogate Spring Water meeting

Campaigners are to stage a protest at an event held by Harrogate Spring Water this week to discuss its expansion plans.

The company, which is part of French multinational Danone, revealed revised plans this month to expand its bottling plant off Harlow Moor Road. This would involve felling 450 trees planted by schoolchildren in nearby Rotary Wood to combat climate change.

Harrogate Spring Water has said it has a contractual agreement with a landowner to buy two acres of land and plant 1,200 saplings to offset the impact if its planning application is accepted. It claims this would lead to a net biodiversity gain on the site.

About 25 people opposed to the felling of trees attended a Save Rotary Wood event in Harrogate yesterday.

One of the children who planted the trees was among those attending, along with members of Zero Carbon Harrogate and Pinewoods Conservation Group, a North Yorkshire councillor and concerned individuals.

Activist Sarah Gibbs said she would protest in her tree costume at the public consultation event, which takes place at the Crown Hotel in Harrogate from 4pm to 7pm on Thursday.

Yesterday’s meeting also discussed developing a long-term strategy to save the trees and heard concerns about the wider impact development would have on the environment and Harrogate’s reputation.

Among the issues raised were more lorries using the site, whether greater water extraction would affect local water supply and the possibility of further expansion at the site.

Jessica Eaton, of Zero Carbon Harrogate, said:

“Where does it stop? And do we want Harrogate to be associated with plastic bottles? I’m fairly sure most people in Harrogate support us.”

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Arnold Warneken, the Green Party councillor for Ouseburn, said campaigners should focus on valid planning reasons for refusal.

One attendee described direct action as a “last resort” but “not inconceivable”.

Harrogate Spring Water already has outline planning permission, which means the principle of development has been established. It is now preparing a reserved matters planning application, which would agree the details.

Richard Hall, managing director of Harrogate Spring Water, said previously the company believed its revised plans addressed previous concerns and “create a way forward together for the local community and for ourselves as a growing Harrogate business”.

He added:

“We would like people to come and see for themselves what we have planned and how we aim to carry it out.”

Anyone who cannot come along on the day will still be able to see the plans and have their say here.