FOR Newcastle it was coal, but for a North Yorkshire town the geological turmoil of 340m years ago has left a far cleaner legacy.

A crashing together of rocks known as the Acadia deformation has left Harrogate with an abundance of spring water, rich with minerals.

And now the town, which has built up its spa image since the first spring was discovered in 1571, is to move into the lucrative £500m-a-year-and-growing market for bottled water.

The borough council has already backed proposals to build a bottling plant on the edge of the town, and now the authority has been given the news that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has decided not to refer it to a public inquiry.

The news has dismayed protestors, who feared the plant would become a white elephant, but means the scheme has cleared its final obstacle.

The newly-formed Harrogate Spa Water Company, a consortium of private companies, has joined with the council to develop the project.

Work on the £2m bottling plant, on Harlow Moor Road, will begin next month with the first bottles expected in the spring.

Harrogate Spa Water managing director Ian Bray said they aimed to capture about half of one per cent of the UK market in the first year and were expecting growth of 20 to 25 per cent a year over the next five years.

He said: "We have done our research and we have talked with several major retailers the possibility of selling our water, and we have had a very positive response.

"The water has an extremely good mineral balance and the water that we are abstracting is just about as good as you can get."

About five million litres will be taken in the first year, from a fountain 150ft underground discovered in geological surveys.

The Acadia deformation created a fault known as the Harrogate Anticline, two overlapping rocks which add a mix of minerals to rainwater.

And the fault is also responsible for the number of springs, as the water heads for the line of least resistance, bursting through along the fault lines.

Gerry Fitzmaurice, the council's project officer for the scheme, said Harrogate's Valley Gardens area alone had about 90 different mineral waters.

"This is all part of promoting the spa image of the town, to raise the profile of Harrogate and help tourism," said Mr Fitzmaurice.

Water has to undergo thorough tests before it can be classified as mineral water and Harrogate Spa Water will join just a handful of other natural mineral waters in the UK.See graphic