Bath’s Green Belt (and areas of the AONB) are under threat from major housing development in the Council’s new draft of the Core Strategy which will come under scrutiny from a Planning Inspector this autumn.
Bath Preservation Trust has taken the position that Bath has an inherent environmental capacity due to the need to protect the World Heritage Site and its green setting, and for this reason we oppose major housing development in the Green Belt or AONB in the immediate environs of Bath. We recognise Bath has a housing need and for that reason have been supportive of the principle of significant housing development on Western Riverside (even if we opposed some of the architecture) and on the ex-MOD sites. We recognise that this might not meet an externally calculated housing requirement but believe that the statutory natural and heritage constraints which apply to Bath must be paramount in determining housing numbers and sites.
Bath Preservation Trust will be represented at the various hearings on the Core Strategy and would encourage members of the public who feel strongly about this to join the Trust as, quite simply, the more members the Trust has, the more weight our views carry. You can join us here.
If you want to sign a petition about this issue, a pressure group has been set up called the South of Bath Alliance (SOBA) campaigning specifically particularly in relation to the Souths Stoke Plateau site, and another group is campaigning covering the Weston site. Each is running a petition and we are happy to draw these to the attention of our mailing lists via the following links: