CAMPAIGNERS and public figures have joined forces in demanding a water company be blocked from felling 1,000 trees in a 20-year-old community woodland ahead of final council vote on Friday.

Actors Dame Judi Dench and Dame Joanna Lumley lent their voices to the Pinewoods Conservation Group and the Save Rotary Woods campaign against plans to expand an existing bottling plant owned by the Harrogate Spring Water company.

They called for North Yorkshire council planning officers to block the water company from cutting down a large section in the Pinewoods and Rotary Wood area.

Plans for the forest, which was first planted by local schoolchildren, have already been recommended for approval by North Yorkshire planning officers ahead of Friday’s final vote scheduled at 2pm.

Campaigners argued that this instance of “textbook deforestation” would contradict climate commitments made by Harrogate’s parent company, French conglomerate Danone.

They added that the council received more than 1,300 objections, and that the campaign was backed by Lib Dem MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough Tom Gordon.

Save Rotary Woods campaigner Sarah Gibbs said: “I am hopeful that our councillors will do what is right and not what is easy: to advocate for the community and represent their constituents.”

She called on councillors to refuse privatisation of public green spaces and deny global corporate ownership, arguing that a vote against this development would be a vote against a flawed and failing planning system.

Dame Judi 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.”

Harrogate Spring Water has been contacted for comment.