7 Longfellow Avenue, Bear Flat, Bath

7 Longfellow Avenue is an unlisted early 20th century terraced dwelling situated within the Bath conservation area and World Heritage Site. The terrace is of a modest scale and design at two storeys faced in a mixture of stone treatments including Bath stone ashlar detailing around the bay windows and doorway, and pitched roofs (now in concrete tiles), stepping down the north-south slope of the road. The terrace retains a degree of homogeneity in form, articulation, and low stone wall boundary treatment reinforced with additional tree planting; the street is further visually unified by its use of public street planting along the pavement. A large number of properties have installed rooflights on the street-facing roof pitch; whilst there is some limited variety in scale, position, and the number of rooflights per building, they typically modest in size and well-spaced to prevent the roofscape from becoming overly dominated by glazing. Where possible, they are positioned flush with the existing roof surface to minimise public visibility.

We therefore have some concerns regarding the proposed installation of three rooflights on the street-facing roof slope. These have been placed directly next to one another, giving the appearance of one ‘triple width’ rooflight. This would be uncharacteristic of the established appearance and roof appearance of the terrace, and would instead be visually intrusive with a high volume of glazing introduced at roof level, contrary to the existing character and appearance of the conservation area. We strongly recommend that the proposed rooflights are repositioned to enable the excessive extent of glazing to be visually broken up and follow the established example of rooflight installations in the area to maintain a congruous appearance. It may be appropriate to consider rooflights of a reduced size to further mitigate cumulative impact on the appearance and character of the conservation area.

We note that the proposed elevations indicate the installation of three rooflights; however, the D&A Statement specifies the inclusion of “2no. roof light windows to the front elevation”. There is a need for this aspect of the scheme to be clarified with regards to the extent of works to the street-facing elevation and consequent degree of visual impact on the wider streetscape setting.