Not just rearranging the loungers…

Titanic Spa aims to set an eco-example

It says it’s “the UK’s first eco-spa”. It opened last year inside Titanic Mill, a luxury green apartment complex conversion in a former textile mill near Huddersfield. And Titanic Spa, which shares the Mill’s utilities, even has a cold-water laundry system which uses ozone, rather than hot water and chemicals, to disinfect all the towels and robes.

Not that this is its big selling point to the punters. They’re more likely to be seduced by the fact that the Mill has its own borehole, supplying water pure enough to drink without needing treatment. But, as spa director Warrick Burton says, Titanic is “first and foremost a luxury spa”, and a straw poll revealed that it is features like location and treatment packages that bring in its custom; no-one they polled had chosen it principally for the ‘eco’ stuff.

For all that, Burton is trying to set a good green example. “Spas are about health and wellbeing, so the whole spa culture goes hand-in-hand with eco-awareness,” he says. Furnishings may have been chosen with comfort uppermost in mind, but many have been sourced locally, to reduce carbon emissions and develop better local relationships. And while the spa products are probably more pale green than deep – Elemis and Decléor – the bistro does offer organic juices, free range chicken and fairly traded coffee.

Clients who do care about keeping down their impact as they pamper themselves may also appreciate the developers’ efforts to make the whole Mill carbon neutral. Around £1million went into raising energy efficiency – most visible in features like the thermal coated glass in the argon-filled double glazing – and using renewables. PV solar panels on the roof currently meet around 20% of the Mill’s energy needs (spa included), and a combined heat and power system fuelled by wood chips from sustainable sources will come online when more apartments are occupied. – Alison Winward

25 March 2008

Alison Winward