30 Milsom Street, City Centre, Bath
30 Milsom Street is a Grade II mid- to late 18th century terraced dwelling, now with office/commercial ground floor and shopfront, situated within the Bath conservation area and World Heritage Site. It makes up part of a high concentration, terraced group of Grade II and Grade II* buildings along Milsom Street, a large number of which are contemporary to the original development of Milsom Street in 1762 by Thomas Lightholder. Milsom Street remains a highly significant commercial streetscape, though originally residential, representative of large-scale Georgian town planning providing intentional sightlines into the city centre. 30 Milsom Street’s value is largely derived from its aesthetic contribution to the wider conservation area and World Heritage Site, and its architectural consistency throughout the rest of the terrace.
Due to the building’s centralised location within the city’s historic centre and retained use of traditional shop front vernacular, the shop frontage is expected to comply with relevant guidance regarding the appropriate use of materials, colours, and a lack of illuminated signage, in keeping with the wider historic character of the Bath conservation area and World Heritage Site.
We note that the ground floor premises has been vacant since 2018, and we therefore welcome the opportunity to bring the building back into active, commercial use on one of Bath’s most significant retail streets.
We are supportive of the proposed repainting of the existing, traditional style timber shopfront, and commend the proposal of hand-lettered signage on the fascia which would preserve the traditional shopfront character and appearance of the conservation area. However, we strongly recommend that further details are submitted regarding the specific colour and proposed finish to be used; we suggest a matte finish would be more aesthetically appropriate in this context.
We note that the shopfront proposals in this LBA do not match with the recently-submitted AR application (see 21/04071/AR) which proposes steel letters with a “rust effect”. This discrepancy between applications should be resolved to make clear the nature of works proposed.