Harrogate Spring Water (Danone) want to extend its factory into Rotary Wood.
Councillors Mike Schofield (Independent) and Arnold Warneken (Green) have been trying to put a stop to this, along with the Pinewoods Conservation Group and Save Rotary Wood.
All four Greens and CPRE submitted an objection to the planning application. The development has outline permission, but only subject to certain conditions which haven’t yet been met, so the fight is far from over.
Here’s their review of the facts as they see them:
- Harrogate Spa Water pays North Yorkshire Council an annual levy of 0.5% of revenue.
- North Yorkshire Council will decide whether Harrogate Spa Water can extend their factory into established woodland.
- The land is owned by North Yorkshire Council. It is an Asset of Community Value, which means it’s officially recognised as being important to the local community.
- Outline permission was granted in 2017. This Reserved Matters application (to deal with all the bits not yet agreed) was submitted back in 2020.
- 10% Biodiversity Net Gain (leaving biodiversity better off than you found it) was proposed in the planning statement but now it’s been adjusted to ‘No Net Loss’ (still in negotiation with the ecologist).
- Only a Phase 1 (broad brush) Ecology Survey has been done. No EcIA – a critical impact assessment – to inform the mitigation plan and properly inform the Council’s decision.
- No basic tree survey was carried out before outline permission was granted. In fact, a tree survey was only carried out in 2024, 4 years after this application submission.
- The land that Harrogate Spa Water will buy to ‘make up’ for the loss of community woodland, will not be owned by the community or the council – it will be privately owned by them.
- Most public consultation documents (both outline and reserved matters) never told the public that removing 500 trees was part of the plan.
- The outline permission conditions said they had to agree mitigation plans before submitting the reserved matters application. This wasn’t done.
Cllr Mike Schofield (Independent) said:
This our community space that is well-used. It’s our beating heart, it’s our healthy lungs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. We need to consider this application very carefully.
Cllr Arnold Warneken (Green) said:
Do we really want to cut down a wood that our community planted only 20 years ago, and is a much-loved and well-used amenity?
Can we really trade our trees for a business to take more of our water? The committee can’t ask those questions, because outline permission has been granted.
But they can ask: Can the Council be sure that this is legally sound, when the biodiversity picture has been so disjointed? Should it be allowed, when it never met the conditions of the outline permission?
