In a shocking turn of events, consultants for Ripon Cathedral have accused The Woodland Trust of acting improperly in identifying a beech tree as a veteran, with the implication that this would thwart a planned development.
Rose Consulting, Planning & Regeneration, who have been instructed by Ripon Cathedral and Chapter wrote to the planning officer on 6 August to claim that the veteran beech in Minster Gardens had been improperly designated as such by the national organisation of The Woodland Trust, with the implication being that this was done to obstruct the progress of the development. “Firstly, it is our considered opinion that T14 is not in fact a ‘veteran’ tree and the sudden designation of the tree following the submission of our application is to be challenged.”
Campaigners point out that this ‘11th hour’ challenge by Rose Consulting contradicts its acceptance of the veteran status of the beech tree in their report of November 2022, before the submission of the application, where they said, “The proposal does involve the removal of eleven trees, including a tree to which HBC have assigned veteran status…”. Campaigners also highlight that the developer itself acknowledged the veteran status of the beech tree in its Tree Survey of September 2022, where it was described as “Entering intermediate Veteran Status”. Therefore, the claim that this beech tree was assigned “veteran status” by The Woodland Trust, “following the submission” is clearly at odds with the accepted timeline, as the application from Ripon Cathedral was submitted in December 2022 and was validated in January 2023.
North Yorkshire Council, the landowner of Kirkgate Park, recently responded to Yorkshire Bylines on this point, stating North Yorkshire Council’s interim assistant director for economic development, regeneration and tourism, Ian Thompson, said:
“The tree was registered on the Ancient Tree Inventory [ATI] in October 2022. Following this registration, a verifier from the Woodland Trust visited the site, assessed the tree as a veteran, and subsequently updated the public ATI website. From that point, the tree’s status as a veteran was made publicly accessible on the ATI.”
Robust response from The Woodland Trust
Jack Taylor, from The Woodland Trust, gave a thorough rebuttal to these new claims, telling Yorkshire Bylines that, “The Trust refutes this claim, noting that it directly contradicts the applicant’s own findings in 2022, which listed T14 as having veteran status”. The statement continued, “It is unfortunate that the applicant has sought to employ a different consultant in an attempt to provide a different opinion on this beech tree’s status and in doing so attempting to devalue the veteran tree to justify the loss of an important tree for wildlife and people”.
The Woodland Trust were frank in their view of this latest claim by the developer. “The applicant references a ‘sudden designation’ of T14 as a veteran tree, following the submission of their application. Below we have outlined how our Ancient Tree Inventory works, how it is used, why it is important and why this assertion is both incorrect and irrelevant.” In blunt terms, it noted, “As such, verification of T14’s veteran status occurred prior to the planning application’s validation date listed as January 2023. The suggestion that the ‘sudden’ designation of this tree as a veteran was in a response to the planning application is simply false and inappropriate”.
The statement concluded:
“In summary, the Trust confirms that T14 is a veteran tree, objectively verified as such well prior to the applicant’s submission. On these grounds, the Woodland Trust maintains its objection”.
Summary of Ripon Cathedral proposal
As a reminder of the overall application, Ripon Cathedral submitted plans almost two years ago to build an annexe on council-owned land, which would offer more facilities for the Cathedral, including a refectory, toilets, storage space and a song school for its choristers. Over 2,700 people have formally and publicly objected to these plans, with many organisations such as The Woodland Trust, Ripon City Council, Ripon Civic Society, The Countryside Charity, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Yorkshire Garden Trust all registering objections to the impact to this conservation site.
A date has now finally been confirmed for Ripon Cathedral’s £8mn annexe plans to go before the local council’s planning committee for scrutiny and judgement. After almost two years of this application having been submitted, and after many delays and extensions from the developer, the date of 3 December 2024 has been accepted by the cathedral and chapter as the time when their proposal will go forward.
Multiple objections to the proposals
Campaigners emphasise that the protection of the veteran tree is simply one in a number of objections that they have to the £8mn development. They have repeatedly noted that the developer – Ripon Cathedral – have never detailed the “wholly exceptional reasons” that are required by the National Planning Policy Framework, to avoid refusal of any development:
“Development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons.”
Campaigners feel that this is an attempt from the consultants to move the veteran tree ‘off the table’ and pave the way for the large annexe. Campaigners have repeatedly argued that the loss of public land, the impact on the heritage of the area, the lack of sensitivity of the project on the conservation area, the archaeological impact, as well as the potential for gypsum instability are material considerations which are being dismissed by the developer.
Is there a ‘public benefit’ to mitigate the loss of public space?
To successfully argue the merits of their case, Ripon Cathedral and Chapter would need to evidence that there is a public benefit to their proposal to build this annexe on council-owned land. A recent claim by a newly formed Cathedral Support Group, led by an ecumenical canon from Ripon Cathedral, in The Church Times, stated that the construction of this annexe would bring a £3mn regional benefit. Yorkshire Bylines contacted the Cathedral and asked them to evidence this crucial mitigation claim – the response reads as follows:
“Our team of experts continue to work through proposals and ideas put forward during the most recent consultation period, in order to determine whether any of these could be incorporated into our plans. An announcement will be made as soon as this process is concluded.”
This response did not address where the £3mn claim had originated from, or indeed how it had been calculated. It also erroneously referred to ‘drop in’ meetings as a “recent consultation period”, when the Cathedral has already admitted that this was not the statutory consultation required for this development.
Will there be more public green space as promised by the developer?
Another key mitigation claim from the Cathedral as developer could be that there would be more public space generated as a result of this development. The Cathedral has claimed that they are “landscaping the Stonemason’s Yard, resulting in a 42% increase in the amount of public open space”. However, campaigners have noted that this would be land which is already privately owned by the Cathedral and any additional landscaping would be on land which would also be owned by the Cathedral owing to the land sale. Yorkshire Bylines also asked the developer for evidence of this mitigation and received the same response as above.
Independent heritage expert report
Campaigners have instructed a legal team to commission a report from a leading independent heritage expert to examine the heritage impacts of this planned development from the Cathedral on this location. This report will be presented to the planning committee to complement the heritage objections already publicly submitted by Ripon Civic Society.
In the past week, the Ripon Civic Society has also published an open letter to Richard Flinton, the chief executive officer of North Yorkshire Council, to request that the they send a strong message that the land will not be offered to developers – a request which might break the current deadlock:
“We urge North Yorkshire Council, as landowner, to accept that alienating half the area by allowing the proposed building is not in line either with the wishes of the many people of Ripon, or its duties to protect open space. A clear statement that sets this out would enable the matter, the cause of friction for too long, to move on.”
Ripon cathedral annexe revised plans
The Cathedral has repeated for months now the public message that revised plans would be forthcoming, but has not engaged directly with specific questions about claims that have been made by its consultants or its supporters. Time will reveal what these revised plans might be – though the potential remains for them to be largely the same as they published two years ago. Any material change to the plans would necessitate time for the community of Ripon to scrutinise the changes and indeed may result in a completely new submission. It is more likely that the size of the building would be reduced in order to avoid breaking down the walls to the Stonemason’s Yard and that some sort of elevated root protection for specific trees might emerge, but this offering would not address the material considerations which campaigners have highlighted.
It is also possible that the decision is taken away from North Yorkshire Council entirely, as campaigners have submitted a request, through the local MP, Julian Smith, for this proposed application to be ‘called in’. It may be then that a sudden decision from the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, might pre-empt any more delay in this application.
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