The public image of Harrogate Spring Water suggests a local company stewarding a local resource. In practice, it is a subsidiary of a multinational conglomerate whose commercial and distribution functions were recently transferred to another Danone subsidiary, Nutricia. That restructuring may reduce the turnover figure against which Harrogate’s royalties are calculated, even though extraction and land use remain the same.

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The company markets its bottles as “Harrogate 1571” and “bottled at source.” The branding invokes a lineage stretching back to the town’s original wells - but those wells are long sealed. The current water comes from deep boreholes drilled for industrial abstraction, outside the centre.

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Financial transparency is limited. The lease is public land; the water is a public resource; yet the details of yield, profit and reinvestment are opaque.

No independent audit links extraction volumes to measurable local benefit.
No environmental bond or endowment fund supports restoration or heritage projects.

 

In the meantime:

• Heavy goods traffic serving the bottling plant adds congestion and emissions on Harlow Moor Road

• Plans to expand the facility would remove around 500 trees from Rotary Wood, a community-planted woodland

• “No net loss of biodiversity” is claimed through off-site credits rather than on-site preservation

 

Economic growth is cited as justification, but the gain is largely private while the environmental cost is collective.