A two building 7 and 9 storey student accommodation scheme was submitted to the council in early 2018 for this small site on Windsor Bridge (next to the Roseberry Place site). The Trust objected strongly to this scheme on the basis that the two buildings would constitute significant overdevelopment of the site in plan form and in terms of the unacceptable height. In particular we were able to refute the applicants claims that the area could now ‘tolerate’ higher buildings because of the precedent set with the two landmark buildings at Bath Western Riverside; in fact the two landmark buildings are just that, out-of-the-ordinary buildings that were designed to echo the iconic gas holders that stood on the old industrial BWR site, and not to establish a new height norm.
See our March 2018 response here.
We were pleased that in May, application 18/00770/FUL was withdrawn. A new application 18/03797/FUL was submitted in September for a revised scheme of 7 and 6 storey residential blocks with no affordable housing. On review of the application we decided to continue our objection as the blocks would remain too high within the local townscape and concerns about the proposed materiality. In our view, the absence of affordable housing provision due to ‘viability’ is unacceptable.
See our September 2018 response here.
We were disappointed that this application was approved at Development Management Committee despite the planning officer’s recommendation of refusal. You can read our press release here.
