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You may be wondering why we put the ‘eco’ in the title in inverted commas.

We’ll come to that in a minute. First, let’s set the scene. The Titanic Eco spa seemed like the perfect place for the Daisy girls to celebrate their first birthday. Describing itself as ‘the UK’s first Eco-Spa’, the Titanic Mill has invested £1.5 million to create a carbon neutral building. It has a 15 metre chlorine-free, salt regulated swimming pool, photovoltaic solar panels to catch the daylight all year round and its very own bore hole, 100 metres below the earth’s surface that provides vast quantities of pure Yorkshire water to the Titanic Experience. How wonderful. So what did we think?

Presentation
The building and the interior were beautifully done. Tasteful, modern and luxurious. Great to see an old mill converted so imaginatively. 4/5

Service
Always polite and accommodating, although there was a mix up with one of our treatments. 4/5

Food
The food in the bistro was pretty good but not outstanding. The ‘all you can eat’ lunch went down well and there was a good choice on the evening menu. The ‘continental style’ breakfast however, left a lot to be desired. We arrived on the evening to find a single croissant each, wrapped in plastic already in our apartments. There were also two single-serving boxes of different types of cereal – bit of a problem if both guests sharing a room want the same thing.  2/5

Treatments
Here are selected quotes from the Daisy girls about their treatments:
‘Nine days since the pedicure and it is still fully intact.’
‘The pro-collagen hand and nail treatment was lovely but I think I was expecting more.’
‘The best treatments I’ve ever had – bliss.’
‘It takes a lot to make me relax but a great facial and head massage did the trick.’
‘This is the first spa I have been to when there has not been the hard sell by the therapist… And best of all my skin looks amazing and feels great.’

Different takes from all of us, but, on the whole, top class. 4/5

Eco rating
Hmm. This is the tough bit. It seemed to us that the management had paid great attention to the eco credibility of the project at the beginning, hence the great carbon neutral building, spa water and so on. However, that, my friends, is where, apparently, it ended. No sign of any fair trade, local, seasonal or organic ingredients in any of the drinks or food – if it was, it didn’t say so (the coffee in the rooms was Nescafe!).

We were quite taken aback that the slippers we were given turned out to be disposable (we took them home). The products used for the treatments were mostly not organic or paraben free. And there were no visible recycling facilities. And so for this we will give a 1/5

To finish on a postive note, on chatting with my manicurist, it transpired that a staff eco-working group is being set up and the therapists already wear bamboo uniforms. We are very pleased to hear it and we’ll be writing to the spa boss with a list of suggestions in the hope that they can properly put the ‘eco’ into their spa.

The Titanic Spa is at Linthwaite, Huddersfield. Visit www.titanicspa.com for more.