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17 December 2025
Main image: The Harrogate Spring Water facility
Harrogate Spring Water – owned by global food and beverage giant Danone – is facing growing criticism over plans to remove around 1,000 trees from Rotary Wood and the Pinewoods area in Harrogate, a 20‑year‑old community woodland planted by local schoolchildren, to expand its bottling plant.
The scheme has already been recommended for approval by North Yorkshire Council planning officers, meaning this week’s vote by local councillors, at 14.00 on Friday 17 April, is now expected to be the final planning decision on the future of the woodland.
Critics say the move flatly contradicts Danone’s high‑profile Forest Policy, which pledges ‘verified deforestation‑ and conversion‑free’ supply chains by 2025 and a ‘forest‑positive’ status by 2030.
They argue that clearing established woodland for industrial expansion amounts to deforestation in all but name, and that no amount of off‑site tree planting can replace the ecological and social value of established trees.
‘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 grown-ups.’
DAME JOANNA LUMLEY OBE
Actor & campaigner
Local campaigners point out that Danone’s forest commitments are explicitly framed as applying across its entire value chain, yet in reality seem to exclude the company’s own operations in the UK.
They warn that if the plans are approved, it will set a dangerous precedent: that corporations can destroy established woodland at home while claiming climate and nature leadership abroad.
‘I’ve spent decades urging companies to turn fine words on forests into real action. What Danone is proposing in Harrogate does the opposite. You cannot call yourself ‘forest positive’ while cutting down a thriving community woodland planted by children. Rotary Wood is precisely the kind of living carbon store and biodiversity refuge we need to protect. If Danone wants credibility on climate and nature, the simplest, most powerful step it can take is to leave these trees standing.’
SIR JONATHON PORRITT CBE
Environmentalist, author & co-founder of Forum for the Future
Click here to object and save Rotary Wood
Harrogate Spring Water is owned by Danone, whose policy bans deforestation after 31 Dec 2020 – six years ago.
Danone’s Forest Policy requires verified deforestation-free supply chains, not offsetting schemes.
Danone’s Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) commitment, which is designed to let local communities consent or reject projects affecting their lands and resources, appears ignored based on the number of objections and the paucity of any compensation offered.
As additional compensation, Danone has pledged to buy a new two-acre woodland, to which the community will be given access for 30 years. Yet it will remain in Danone’s private ownership, meaning it’s not a like-for-like replacement of the accessible community woodland that would be lost.
Danone has reportedly proposed a tree-planting initiative that would replace the 500 removed trees with roughly 3,000 new trees. However, tree planting cannot replace the carbon and biodiversity value of mature woodland that has been there for over 20 years.
Established woodland supports complex ecosystems (fungi, birds, mammals, understory flora) that take 20–50 years to develop; saplings are ecological deserts by comparison.
Trees that are over 20 years old are at their peak when it comes to carbon sequestration, established root systems and wildlife habitat; saplings won’t reach maturity for decades.
More than 1,300 formal objections have been submitted by residents, conservation organisations and individuals involved in the original planting.
Dame Judi Dench has once again shared her thoughts on this local but nationally relevant issue. She 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 habitat are lost, they are not simply replaced by promises. 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.’
With planning officers now recommending approval, this week’s committee meeting is widely seen as the last chance for elected councillors to determine whether the proposal accords with national planning policy and aligns with the environmental standards expected from such a major development.
A final decision on Harrogate Spring Water’s expansion plans is expected at the upcoming Harrogate and Knaresborough area planning committee meeting on Friday 17 April.
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