Harrogate Spring Water: Judi Dench and Joanna Lumley urge councillors to reject bottling plans over tree loss

North Yorkshire Council’s planning committee will rule tomorrow on proposals for the new bottling plant, in Harlow Moor Road, Harrogate, which HSW’s multinational owner Danone has said will contribute £17m to the local economy.

However, the plans have been the subject of controversy for years due to the intended loss of trees at Rotary Wood and Pinewoods to make way for the site.

More than 1,300 submissions have been made to the council about the application, with concerns raised by the likes of the Rotary Club of Harrogate, Harrogate Civic Society, the Ramblers Association, the Pinewoods Conservation Group and the Save Rotary Wood Group.

Now, on the eve of the decision, which has been recommended for approval by council planning officers, two of the country’s biggest stars have also urged councillors to reject the proposal.

Oscar-winner Dame Judi, widely heralded as one of the greatest British actors of her generation, said: “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 habitats are lost, they are not simply replaced by promises.

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“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”.

Dame Joanna, most famous for starring in Absolutely Fabulous with Jennifer Saunders, 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.”

Meanwhile, Coun Arnold Warneken, chair of the North Yorkshire Green Party, said he was “bewildered why the council has recommended to approve this application, when it clearly can’t say whether or not it will cause significant damage to the environment, because so much information is missing”.

“If Harrogate Spring Water haven’t managed to provide key details after nine years, why on earth is the council saying that the committee can approve it and worry about those details later?”

The council report recommending the decision said the principle of development has already been established through an outline planning application approved in 2017.

This acknowledged the proposal “would cause harm” through the loss of trees but concluded the economic benefits of the proposal outweighed this.

Richard Hall, managing director of HSW, has previously said six times more trees would be planted by the company than would be lost.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It’s a really interesting development for the town; we employ 86 people today and this would create 50 new jobs and 20 in construction.

“Manufacturing is becoming more and more high-tech so you’ll have opportunities for apprenticeships, opportunities for engineering, jobs to learn about high-tech manufacturing in the food industry.”

HSW has said its Leeds-based suppliers “could see annual spend increase by 89 per cent to just over £16m”.

It added that combined spend across packaging-related suppliers, “including but not limited to cardboard packaging from Halifax, pallets from Pontefract and bottle caps from Hull, is projected to double from around £3.5m to £6.9m”.