Basement, 27 Park Street, Lansdown, Bath

In principle, BPT is supportive of sensitive sustainability retrofits, where deemed appropriate, within the historic environment. In light of the current Climate Emergency, we appreciate the urgency of reducing energy consumption and carbon production, as well as upgrading our existing historic housing stock to meet modern standards of living and thermal performance.

We maintain that the suitability of energy-efficient retrofits in relation to sustaining the special interest of a listed building and preserving and enhancing the wider appearance and character of the conservation area must be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Where windows are of a non-historic origin in a listed building, we are generally favourable of their replacement with ‘heritage double glazing’ (slimlite) equivalents where deemed visually appropriate. The existing windows are attributed to 2013 and as such are of no historic or material value in themselves. We note the location of the existing windows is at lower ground floor level to the rear of the property and as such would be completely screened from public view.
This therefore offers a positive opportunity for the implementation of energy-efficient retrofits with no loss of historic fabric. However, we still encourage the LPA to consider the proposals within the context of the energy hierarchy and the many other energy efficiency measures that could be undertaken to the whole building alongside upgrades to windows.

There appears to be some disparity between the drawings of the existing and proposed windows, indicated to be replaced like-for-like, and the windows as shown in the attached photographs. The photographs show the windows to have an asymmetric 8-pane fenestration, whereas the existing and proposed drawings indicate a 6-pane fenestration in a later style. It is unclear as to why the existing drawings and the photos differ in design and we recommend this aspect of the scheme is clarified before this application progresses further.