Plan for bottling plant on Harrogate woodland rejected after Dame Judi Dench intervened
A planning meeting has rejected proposals from Harrogate Spring Water
Last updated 17th Apr 2026
Councillors have rejected a plan to expand a water bottling plant into a community wood, after a campaign involving Dame Judi Dench, Dame Joanna Lumley and Bianca Jagger, as well as hundreds of local people.
A planning meeting on Friday rejected proposals from Harrogate Spring Water (HSW) to expand its existing facility in the town.
Ahead of the meeting, Dame Judi urged councillors on North Yorkshire Council’s Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Planning Committee to reject the plan, saying it will destroy “a living, growing woodland created through patience, care and public spirit”.
The council received more than 1,000 objections to the scheme, which would have seen the removal of hundreds of trees at a site called Rotary Wood, which was planted by children 20 years ago.
HSW’s managing director Richard Hall told Friday’s meeting the facility would create more than 50 new jobs, and how the firm planned to establish a new public wood, featuring 491 new trees, as well as committing to planting around 3,000 trees on land around the Harrogate district.
In her letter to councillors ahead of the meeting, Dame Judi said: “Rotary Wood is not an empty plot waiting for a better use. It is a living, growing woodland created through patience, care and public spirit.
“Local families, volunteers, schoolchildren and community supporters helped plant it and watch it take root.
“Over the years it has become part of Harrogate’s natural fabric and part of the area’s shared sense of place.”
The Yorkshire-born Oscar, Bafta and Oliver Award winning actor added: “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.”