Morrisons Supermarket, London Road, Walcot

This application concerns the Morrisons Supermarket building and car park set back to the rear of London Road, situated within the Bath conservation area and World Heritage site. Whilst largely concealed from the London Road streetscape, which forms the setting for a high concentration of listed buildings, the access road into the supermarket site remains visible, and therefore must be considered in relation to its sensitive, historic context when proposing signage changes.

It appears that the existing, internally illuminated signage to the entrance of the Morrisons car park was permitted in 2005 (see application 05/00062/AR). The proposed replacement signage would have a specified brightness of 400 cd/m2; however, it is unclear as to whether this figure relates to the existing brightness of the existing illuminated signs, or whether the brightness will be increased as part of this application. Bath has an established character as a low-level illuminated city with a low-light evening and night-time character. We would therefore strongly recommend that signage with a lower maximum output is selected to prevent unwanted lightspill at the detriment to the appearance and character of the conservation area and World Heritage site.