Bath councillors dismiss calls to give up the city’s UNESCO title
A top councillor has branded the idea a “non-starter”
A top councillor has branded the idea of Bath giving up its UNESCO World Heritage Site status to build more housing a “non-starter.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council has been told by the government that it needs to find space to build 27,000 new homes across the area over the next 18 years. But the council has come under fire for suggesting building most of those homes in North East Somerset, despite most of the demand coming from Bath.
Matt McCabe (Bathavon South, Liberal Democrat), the council’s cabinet member for built environment, housing, and sustainable development, insisted the council could not build the homes as a suburban expansion of Bath because its green setting is specifically protected in the city’s UNESCO World Heritage Site listing. He said: “I know there have been some calls for Bath to give up its World Heritage listing from outside of Bath, but there is no appetite for that politically and within Bath — so that is a non-starter.”
Mr McCabe was speaking at a meeting of a council scrutiny committee on October 23 discussing the plans. Chair of the committee Andy Wait (Keynsham East, Liberal Democrat) criticised the council’s proposals to build most of the homes in North East Somerset. He said: “It seems to me very unfair that North East Somerset should bear the brunt of housing that they don’t really need.”
Mr Wait said: “When the government increased the housing numbers, they suggested that there should be 14,000 houses in Bath and 13,000 houses in North East Somerset. And yet the local plan only has 7,000 in Bath and 21,000 in North East Somerset, which seems slightly contrary to what the government is suggesting.”
He added: “The employment opportunities in Bath are far greater than they are elsewhere in North East Somerset. The plan seems to encourage more employment in Bath but not build more housing in Bath so it seems to me this goes against the whole purpose of our climate emergency — which is what this scrutiny panel is about. … That will create more congestion on our roads, even assuming more of them will be cycling and walking.”
Mr McCabe said the government had given the council one overall target for the whole of Bath and North East Somerset, despite Bath having more restrictions on building, which had led to the “unfair” situation. He accused the government of getting their housing targets from a “clunky calculator without any sense of finesse.” He said: “We have argued our case with government that Bath is unique and you need to take a different approach rather than applying this calculator.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council needs to find space for enough homes to hit the housing target in its new local plan: a hugely important document councils are required to produce that sets out their planning policies and allocates where developments should be built. Until the council has an up to date local plan in place, the council has far less power to refuse developments in unwanted areas. Once adopted, the plan will run until 2043.
The council is currently consulting on its “local plan options document,” asking for people’s views and local expertise about sites which could be allocated for housing in the plan. Keynsham, where Mr Wait is a councillor, is one area which could see a huge amount of new development under the plan.
Keynsham neighbours the village of Saltford, which could also see new development under options proposed for the plan. In June, Saltford parish councillor Phil Harding called for Bath to give up its World Heritage Site status in order to shoulder more of the housing instead. Saltford has a riverside which is a popular local beauty spot, but the village does not have the same international recognition of its significance as Bath.
Bath accounts for two of the 31 UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the UK. The City of Bath has been a World Heritage Site since 1987 for its Roman Baths and Georgian architecture. In 2021, it was listed for a second time as part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe World Heritage Site alongside 11 other historic spa towns across the continent.