Planning and delivery

Visions are easier to create than to deliver. While the aspirations and ideas contained within the Future for Bath Vision hopefully represent an appropriate and exciting future direction of travel for the city, it is acknowledged that the planning and funding required to translate vision into reality poses a significant and sobering challenge.

In order to make progress towards delivering some or all of the Future for Bath Vision proposals, the city must actively engage with a range of factors, including:

  • Market forces
  • Viability
  • Access to capital
  • Regional/national dimension
  • Council dimension
  • Wider stakeholders
  • Support from the community
  • Overcoming regulatory issues
  • Changes of policy
  • Overcoming complacency

Most importantly, the successful delivery of the vision depends on strong public and private sector leadership.

Business Plan and Spatial Framework

At an early stage in the development of the Future for Bath Vision, the Council decided to appoint internationally respected business consultants Ernst and Young to produce a business plan to challenge and test the Vision.

Ernst and Young also produced a financial model which identified more than twenty development sites, undertook an indicative financial appraisal of each site and assessed indicative overall funding requirements to realise the Vision.  

This process was supported by town planning experts Terence O'Rourke who tested the spatial proposals within the Vision.

The Future for Bath Business Plan and Spatial framework were produced in 2006 and have been available to the public since that time. The documents are, on the whole, highly supportive of the Vision.

The Business Plan was particularly supportive of the plans for economic growth and recommended that growth in Bath should:

  • Be focused on the individual, and the theme of 'mind, body and spirit' established in the Vision
  • Realise Bath's creativity and intellectual capital opportunities
  • Clearly position the city in the market place
  • Provide space for business growth
  • Set a clear strategy for Bath's unique retail offer
  • Establish a clear, focused tourism offer, with business tourism as a priority

The Future for Bath Business Plan also concluded that Bath was capable of contributing to the regional growth agenda, but that growth in the city needed to be carefully managed and controlled to ensure that it was in line with Bath's unique and distinctive status.

Implementation and delivery

A series of studies and strategies are under way to develop the Future for Bath Vision proposals towards implementation. These include a Retail Strategy, Cultural Strategy, Place-Making Strategy, Business Development and Employment Space Strategy, Housing Development Strategy, and Parking Strategy. 

A separate study on Destination Management is also being undertaken by Bath Tourism Plus. Each of these studies involves targeting key stakeholders within the relevant sectors. The outputs and proposed action plans from all of these studies will be integrated early in 2008 to inform:

  • A Development and Regeneration Strategy and Delivery Plan, including a master framework for the city centre
  • Development of new planning policy for Bath and North East Somerset through the Core Strategy and Local Development Framework process, which will be the subject of on-going community engagement exercises
  • The development of an integrated marketing strategy for the city

The Council is also researching and exploring a range of public/private sector delivery mechanisms, such as City Development Companies and Urban Regeneration Companies, to establish the most appropriate model for Bath.

The Council is also in the process of identifying a range of suitable developers to be considered for the future development and regeneration of the city. If Bath is to realise the highly distinctive 'niche' developments proposed by the Future for Bath Vision, the Council will need to work with appropriate 'niche' developers who appreciate Bath's unique character and identity.

Urban Regeneration Panel

In 2004 the Council set up an advisory Urban Regeneration Panel to guide and challenge the proposals for the future development of the city.

The panel comprises six national and international experts with significant experience across a range of disciplines including heritage, urbanism, architecture, planning, development and regeneration, housing, engineering, access and movement and sustainability.

Members of the panel have been directly involved in major regeneration and development schemes within the UK and abroad and bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to assist the Council with the development and delivery of the Future for Bath Vision. 

The Urban Regeneraton Panel members are critical friends and advisers to the Council in preparing for the significant development and regeneration agenda which lies ahead.

The Panel is not, however, intended as a substitute for public engagement, which will continue to take place through a range of forums including ongoing public presentations, this website, the Local Planning Authority's consultation on the Core Strategy and, with regard to individual planning applications for development schemes, through the statutory planning process.