Harrogate Spring Water: MP claims council has cash motive to ensure factory expansion goes ahead

Lib Dem MP Tom Gordon made the accusation in a letter urging Environment Secretary Steve Reed to “call in” controversial proposals to extend Harrogate Spring Water's facility into a community-planted woodland.

More than 1,000 objections have been made against the proposals, which have reached the "reserved matters stage", including details of appearance, landscape and access.

Outline plans for the firm, owned by food and drink multinational Danone, were approved by NYC's predecessor, Harrogate Borough Council (HBC), in 2017.

In October councillors deferred a decision, amid objections over the loss of around 500 trees in almost two acres of 96-acre Rotary Wood.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the former HBC, and now NYC, the land’s freeholder, receives rent and 0.5 per cent of the HSW's annual turnover. This has brought in over £1.3m over the past decade into council coffers.

In his letter the MP says the "levy" NYC receives means there’s a "potential financial incentive for the council to ensure that the expansion goes ahead and production is increased".

He also expressed concern that the former Harrogate council didn't carry out an environmental impact assessment at the outline planning stage. North Yorkshire Council has said one is not required now.

But Mr Gordon insists the "proposed woodland removal, landscape impact, biodiversity loss, traffic generation and hydrological effects clearly meet several relevant screening criteria".

He said the application should be decided at national level to ensure "public confidence that the correct process has been followed".

He told the Yorkshire Post: “It feels like the council have already decided the outcome of the application they would like to see. It seems at the moment there’s an unfair approach depending on who you are.”

NYC’s director for community development, Nic Harne, said they wouldn’t comment on a live planning application. They’d take all views submitted in relation to the application into consideration.

He said: “All planning decisions are determined by the council in its role as the local planning authority based on planning policy and material considerations.”

Earlier this year HSW managing director Richard Hall said six times more trees would be planted than would be lost and urged critics to see “the big picture”.

He said: “This is a nice local business that’s expanding and will be offering jobs and skills.

“And of course we need to do that responsibly, and that’s where we had some feedback and opposition, and we’ve responded to that, but let’s step back for a minute and think about the big picture.

“We want development in North Yorkshire and this is an opportunity."

HSW has two licences which allow it to abstract up to 464 million litres of groundwater every year from beneath Harrogate.