Lansdown Lawn Tennis & Squash Racquets Club, Northfields, Lansdown

This application concerns the southernmost tennis court, as part of the Lansdown Tennis Club, situated within the Bath conservation area and World Heritage site. It is positioned immediately to the rear of Northfields Close, a series of detached two-storey dwellings. Permission was given in 2002 for the erection of 8 8m tall floodlights, with new floodlights for court 4 being approved in 2016.

We note the existing precedent on the site for night-time illumination of this scale. However, we would additionally highlight the potential impact on residential amenity caused by excessive illumination close to the boundary between the tennis courts and the private gardens of Northfields Close. The Planning Statement notes that “light spillage would extend into part of the rear gardens of Innisfree and Estoril and dwellings along Northfields Close”. We therefore trust that the case officer will this application in relation to Policy D6 of the Core Strategy and Placemaking Plan.

Should this application be approved, we feel that the proposed hours of use in the Planning Statement (up until 22:00 Saturday to Thursday excluding Sundays) would be out of keeping with the condition imposed on other floodlights on the site. We would therefore recommend that application 16/01700/FUL is used to inform the proposed hours of use (13:00 to 21:00 hours Saturday to Thursday and 13:00 to 22:00 hours Friday).