Rotary Wood: Climate change scientist's report issued on eve of crucial planning vote at Harrogate Borough Council

Harrogate Spring Water 'pleased' by planners' backing for its expansion plans

With 24 hours until the planning committee of Harrogate Borough Council meets to vote on Harrogate Spring Water's revised plans to build a bigger bottling plant at Rotary Wood at the Pinewoods, the new report by a leading scientific advisor to the Government on climate change concludes more than five hectares of additional planting is required to meet local carbon emissions targets.

The report - called “Carbon losses from the proposed Rotary wood felling and compensation options” - has been written for Zero Carbon Harrogate, by Zero Carbon Harrogate member Anna Gugan and Professor Piers Forster, Director of the Priestly International Centre for Climate Change at Leeds University and Patron of Zero Carbon Harrogate.

Professor Piers Forster, who lives locally, has played a significant role authoring Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and currently has a coordinating lead author role for the IPCC sixth assessment report.

He also sits on the national Climate Change Committee which advises the Government.

The report includes an analysis of the number and age of trees at Rotary Wood and the number and age of trees which its says are proposed in the expansion plans compared to Harrogate Borough Council's stated targets for the reduction of carbon emissions in the Harrogate district.

The report makes clear how vital it believes it is to protect mature or semi mature woodland such as the 15-year-old Rotary Wood.

The report says: "We summarise the effect on carbon loss of the proposed removal of woodland to make way for Harrogate Spring Water’s bottling plant extension combined with their proposed woodland compensation scheme.

"The best outcome for both climate change and biodiversity is to leave the existing woodland and let it grow to maturity on public land to create affectively permanent carbon storage.

"If removal were to occur, we recommend, as a minimum, that enough new woodland is planted to achieve carbon parity with the existing woodland by 2038, the date of Harrogate Borough Council’s zero emissions target.

"Our calculations show that over five hectares of additional planting with careful management would be needed to achieve parity by 2038."

What Harrogate Spring Water say

A spokesperson said today: "Harrogate Spring Water is a B Corp certified business and we pride ourselves on acting with the highest standard of care and consideration towards our environment.

"We’re actively working to reduce our carbon footprint so we can achieve carbon neutrality certification across our operations, although offsetting carbon emissions is not a requirement for our planning application.

We’ll continue to welcome suggestions from our neighbours and wider community.

"We want the community to be as involved as possible and we want to leave a positive environmental impact in Harrogate, continuing our long-standing commitment to the town."

Rob Pickering, a senior spokesperson for Harrogate Spring Water, said: “We’d like to reassure the local community that the plan for Rotary Wood places a huge focus on supporting the local environment and promoting biodiversity.

“Our plans include a commitment to replacing the trees on a two for one basis and a long term plan to ensure they are looked after and protected.

"And for the area of Rotary Woods that will remain as woodland, we will be investing to enhance its accessibility and usability for the community. We are and will continue to be good considerate neighbours within Harrogate.

“The extension to our existing facility will help in enabling us to continue our role in supporting the local and regional economy. "

Decision time for Harrogate Spring Water’s divisive expansion plans at Rotary Wood

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.