Strong Foundations
Bath is blessed with a range of impressive and enduring assets
which provide an enviable foundation for its future reinvention and
success. These include:
Beauty and unmatched heritage
Bath has many remarkable features that have resulted in the
city’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its outstanding
architecture and urban design, its sublime landscape setting, its
honey-coloured stone, its Roman archaeology and its mysterious hot
springs continue to delight and inspire locals and visitors alike.
Further proposals for the future management of Bath’s heritage can
be found in the
City of Bath
World Heritage Site Management Plan which was prepared by
the Council, English Heritage and a range of local
stakeholders.
Further ideas for refreshing and interpreting Bath’s heritage
attractions can also be found within the Future for Bath Vision
under
Developing a Spatial Framework: Living Heritage.
Enviable quality of life
The remarkable beauty of Bath’s built form combined with the
outstanding natural beauty of the surrounding countryside of
Somerset, Wiltshire and the Cotswolds represents an almost
unbeatable combination. The ability to live and work in, or near
to, a World Heritage city with easy access to a range of world
class places, attractions and facilities across the South West
creates an enviable quality of life.
Despite its current challenges, Bath continues to be one of
England’s most ‘liveable’ cities, attracting visitors and new
residents on the basis of an image and lifestyle which brings
together the best of urban and rural life.
World renowned brand
Bath enjoys a level of international recognition, interest and
attention that far exceeds its modest size and which continues to
attract millions of visitors to the city each year.
However, while the ‘Bath brand’ continues to command respect it
has, like the city itself, become increasingly tired and stale in
recent years and almost exclusively associated with heritage.
Successful cities of the future must offer more than one choice
or experience. Bath will, therefore, need to diversify and provide
more than world-class heritage if it is to continue to attract and
retain visitors, businesses and new residents long into the
future.
UK’s only hot springs
Bath has the only naturally occurring hot springs in the United
Kingdom. In addition to being able to experience the largest of the
three springs, the King’s Spring, rising within the awe-inspiring
setting of the Roman
Baths, residents and visitors can once more bathe in the city’s
thermal springs at the recently opened
Thermae Bath Spa,
which reconnects Bath to its source and raison d’etre.
Outstanding education sector
Bath is fortunate to have an impressive range of educational
establishments, including a number of acclaimed state-funded and
independent schools and a college of further education.
It has also two highly respected universities, a rarity for a
city of its size. However, neither of these has any significant
presence in the city centre, with the University of Bath occupying
a campus location to the south at Claverton Down and Bath Spa
University housing the majority of its facilities to the west of
the city at Newton St Loe. Consequently, Bath lacks some of the
vibrancy and diversity of other university cities such as
Canterbury, Bristol, Oxford or Cambridge where ‘town and gown’
functions are more successfully united, and is failing to capture
the full economic value of its intellectual capital within the
city.
The expansion of universities across the United Kingdom and the
associated increase in demand for student housing also poses a
major challenge for some of Bath’s residential communities,
particularly to the south and south west of the city where, as with
many other towns and cities, ‘studentification’ has become an
increasingly contentious issue.
However, the
Ernst and Young Future for Bath and North East Somerset Business
Plan emphasises that the universities are key to Bath’s future
economic and cultural success. Consequently, continued positive and
proactive engagement between the Council and the two universities
is required to address existing challenges and to maximise the
future potential for the city and its residents.
Further education and learning proposals are put forward under
the
Knowledge and Invention section of this website.
Good regional access
While Bath’s access and movement problems are acknowledged, the
city does benefit from excellent rail links east to London and west
to Bristol, the South West and South Wales. Access to and from the
M4 motorway is relatively convenient and Bath is located within
easy access of Bristol International Airport.
In addition to rail, the city has an improving bus network which
enjoys an increasingly high level of patronage in comparison with
most other cities.
See information on the Bath Package
Excellence in sports
Bath’s sporting prowess includes its internationally renowned
Rugby Club and its University Sports Training Village, which is
already a permanent training home for a number of current and
potential Olympians. The city is also known for its leading
community cricket club, prize winning tennis and a popular local
football team. The city supports a variety of sporting events,
including the annual Bath Half-Marathon.
In July 1995, Bath was the location for the European Youth
Olympics, in which 2,366 athletes and officials from 47 countries
participated. The University of Bath is currently on a shortlist of
four sites to host the Great Britain team’s preparation camps in
the run up to the London 2012 Olympic Games and in 2008 Bristol and
Bath will host the UK School Games.
Bath also has a nationally respected course for horse-racing to
the north of the city at Lansdown and a well known motor-racing
circuit at nearby Castle Combe.
Green credentials
Bath has a long association with the green movement and a number
of leading national thinkers, experts and campaigners live in or
near to the city. In addition, key national organisations such as
the Soil Association, Sustrans and the Schumacher Society are based
in the South West.
Over the years, Bath has been a focal point for green
initiatives and innovations, including award-winning recycling and
one of the country’s first environment centres
(Envolve). Bath was also
the city that spearheaded the national Farmers’ Market movement,
when the country’s first
Farmers’ Market
opened at Green Park Station in 1997, supported by Bath and North
East Somerset Council and the Soil Association.
Within the Council in recent years a new momentum has grown in
response to the climate change and energy agendas. A four-pronged
strategy (see link below) focusing on buildings, transport, waste
and food is being actively progressed.
Environmental Sustainability Strategic Framework 2007
Bath and North East Somerset Council signed the
Nottingham Declaration in December 2005 and the Bath and North
East Somerset Local Strategic Partnership was recently the
recipient of a Treasury grant to fund an innovative energy
efficiency project called Our Big Energy Challenge, the first of
its kind in Britain, with a target to reduce energy consumption by
at least ten per cent by 2009.
Arts and culture
The city fosters and benefits from an impressive range of
artistic activity and provision including festivals such as the
Bath International Music
Festival, Bath
Literature Festival,
Bath Fringe Festival,
theatres (including
Bath's Theatre
Royal), public and commercial galleries, arts studios and
a variety of artistic organisations, networks and high calibre
educational establishments supporting music, theatre, the visual
arts and design.
Bath also benefits from a wide and respected range of museums
and cultural attractions including, among others, the
Roman Baths, the
Fashion Museum, the
Holburne of Menstrie
Museum and the
Building
of Bath Museum. However, despite these many attractions there
is a growing view that Bath is not achieving its full potential as
a centre for contemporary arts and cultural activity.
Strong civic pride
Bath benefits from a high level of public interest and civic
pride, particularly with regard to its heritage and built
environment.
While the passion and active interest of local amenity groups
must be commended and encouraged, it is important that the
community as a whole is actively engaged in the proposals for the
future of their city, to ensure an outcome which reflects the needs
and aspirations of the many rather than the few.