National treasure, Dame Judi Dench, spoke out today in support of the trees threatened by the £8mn extension plans of Ripon Cathedral. In a statement sent to Yorkshire Bylines, the veteran star of stage and screen, pledged her support for campaigners in the city, who have been fighting the development for almost two years:
“I fully support the campaign to protect the veteran tree in Ripon, along with the other healthy urban trees under threat. As an ambassador for The Woodland Trust, which rightly views veteran trees as a priority, as they are irreplaceable habitat, I hope a solution can be found to protect this conservation area.”
Dame Judi Dench has long shared her passion and enthusiasm for trees and nature. In 2017, she starred in the documentary, ‘Judi Dench: My Passion for Trees’, in which her evident respect and wonder of the lives of trees was apparent. As an ambassador for The Woodland Trust, she has regularly publicly signalled her support of woodlands and forests in the UK.
National treasures
Dame Judi Dench is now the latest in a line of high profile, national figures who have drawn attention to the plight of the threatened trees in Ripon and who have signalled their support of the local protestors. The naturalist and campaigner, Chris Packham, has also publicly spoken out, urging that “Tree vandalism in our precious urban green spaces must end – please support those that are fighting back”. Feargal Sharkey, who has been a prolific defender of rivers and waterways, described the tree felling plans of Ripon Cathedral as “Greenwashing at its finest”.
A spokesperson for the campaign group noted:
“Having such a well-respected, champion of trees supporting nature and the campaign in this way is invaluable and we are truly grateful to Dame Judi Dench for sending this public support. Her comments today have made a powerful, positive contribution to the campaign to protect the park, including the veteran tree.”
Woodland Trust lead campaigner Jack Taylor said:
“It is great that Dame Judi, as our patron and one of our wonderful ambassadors, so actively and passionately supports our vital work.
“She knows how important urban trees are for both people and wildlife, and even more so when they are mature, veteran or ancient. These “Living Legends” are irreplaceable and we hope common sense prevails and the veteran beech tree and 10 other mature treescan be saved.”
Ripon Cathedral’s plans
Ripon Cathedral’s controversial plans centre around felling 11 healthy, urban trees, including a veteran tree, to build an annexe, which in 2021 was costed at £8mn. The Cathedral claims that this is necessary in order to provide a large refectory, a song school for the choristers, storage, and toilets close by to the Cathedral.
In a document uploaded on the council’s planning portal only a few days ago, Ripon Cathedral argued that the annexe was justified because, “Securing the future of the Cathedral is a significant benefit to the people of Ripon and North Yorkshire. The facilities to be provided within the building are considered to be crucial for its future”.
Perhaps, more insidiously, they added “It is the project not proceeding that will pose the greater risk to Ripon traders”, suggesting that if the plans are not passed, then somehow this will damage the city.
Confusion from the Cathedral
The new claims also seem to directly contradict the original consultants’ reports which were published at the start of the process. The new report reads, “Some local stakeholders have suggested that the development of the Cathedral Renewed project, and specifically the inclusion of a refectory, will harm Ripon traders. These comments, which appear to be lay opinions formulated without the benefit of any hard evidence or financial modelling”.
However, this line of argument was created by the Cathedral’s own published comments which read:
“Cathedral Refectory – for this to be a financially viable part of the Cathedral business plan it needs to be a certain size, to accommodate a coach party, and be very close to the Cathedral. This is required to prevent visitors drifting away from the Cathedral and using the various cafes in the city.”
When the plan was first published, visitor numbers to the Cathedral appeared to rise and plateau at around 27,000 visitors. However, the new comments from the Cathedral seem to be very confused about the number of visitors, quoting both “attracting close to 100,000 visitors each year” and also “from the c.90,000 visitors in the latest year”. Numbers released recently also state “the Cathedral currently attracts 110,000 visitors annually who come into the building”, all of these contradictory visitor numbers were uploaded to the planning portal at the same time.
Estimated numbers now seem to suggest that “Growth after period of years” could be around 150,000, which, when added to concert goers, could push the total number of visitors up to 195,000 people.
Unfortunately, this number is significantly inflated over the original numbers submitted by Ripon Cathedral itself in December 2022, which capped the numbers at 137,015 visitors.
These new claims from the Cathedral about the uplift to the city’s economy seem to dismiss and disregard the simple point that the current visitor numbers to the Cathedral already contribute to the local economy, so should not be included as extra financial benefit, as they already use the hotels and restaurants. Rather, it should only be the extra numbers who will come because of the annexe which should be relevant to an economic study of the benefit of building an annex.
Including those who attend events is flawed, as they already contribute and therefore this is not an additional income.
The report itself admits that many of its numbers are flawed, owing to lack of evidence.
“In the absence of formal survey information on this part of the visitor market, it is estimated by the Cathedral that 50% of attendees at ticketed events reside outside Ripon.”
In the absence of evidence and data then, this contradictory information from the developer could be regarded as meaningless and not useful for planning consideration.
Decision day in December
With the decision day being planned for December, it is hoped that the Cathedral is not going to deluge the community with more of these contradictory statements and reports, with the vain attempt to get their plans ‘over the line’ at all costs. Sadly, clarity of communication and dialogue has been lacking from the developer over the past two years.
The campaign group now hope that more national and prominent figures will follow Dame Judi Dench’s public stance and show their support for the tree-saving campaign.
Campaigners also hope that the Cathedral will demonstrate that they have listened to the people of Ripon and produce a plan which protects the park, protects the veteran tree and protects the heritage of the city of which the community is so proud.
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