North Quays approved Avon Street car park will be demolished to make way for much needed office space and new homes... but no affordable housing
A “bleak” multi-storey car park in Bath will be knocked down to make way for up to 270 homes, offices, shops and up to 130 hotel bedrooms. Bath and North East Somerset Council’s development control committee yesterday narrowed voted to back the plans and delegate approval of final details to officials by six votes to four. The North Quays project, which the council itself is behind, aims to provide more office space to meet a desperate shortage in the city on the site of Avon Street car park. But it has been controversial, mainly because the application doesn’t not include any affordable housing, despite the council normally insisting 30 per cent of homes in any development must be classed as affordable. Speaking at the meeting, transport campaigner Dave Redgewell was among those to make this argument. “It’s absolutely disgraceful,” he said. “This is a council site and there’s a shortage of housing. It’s the council’s own policy to affordable housing. That’s your own strategy that’s not being followed. “You’re creating a rich person’s city. I urge you to send this back.” He also questioned what would happen to the coach parking at the site. A viability study showed the project could not support any affordable housing but Cllr Paul Crossley said he was becoming “increasingly cynical” of viability assessments, claiming the figures can be used show anything. He called for more time to dig into the numbers. A motion to delay the decision was defeated. The council’s infrastructure and development manager Simon Martin said Bath Quays North was the council’s primary regeneration project, aimed at boosting the economy and reducing its reliance on tourism and retail. He said it was not viable with any mix of the proposed uses to provide affordable housing - but the properties could be funded by a pending grant from Homes England. And after the meeting, council leader Tim Warren said: “This was predominantly an office development to provide new jobs in the city. When you are regenerating a site, the only way to provide high quality offices is to subsidise them, in this case by providing housing. “Much as we would have liked a quantity of affordable housing, it just doesn’t add up. If it was insisted on, we wouldn’t get the jobs - and you need jobs to get houses.” The 2.2-hectare site contains the 639space Avon Street car park, a coach dropoff area with 13 spaces, a cafe and public toilets. The plan, which is part of Bath and North East Somerset Council’s flagship Bath Quays regeneration project, will include 15,000 to 25,000 sq m of office space, 70 to 270 homes, up to 130 hotel rooms, shops, restaurants, a clinic and a gym, although none of the homes on the site will be made available as affordable housing. A basement car park with between 430 and 495 car parking spaces, of which 320 would be for public use, will also be factored into the project. After the committee’s approval, the final details will be decided in a reserved matters application that will follow. Recommending the plans for approval, planning officers said in their report: “The city centre conservation area character appraisal (2015) notes the ‘bleak post-war redevelopment’ of the site for coach and car parks where the coherence of Georgian Bath is entirely lost. “The multi-storey car park, Avon Street, Corn Street and surrounding streetscape are identified as negative buildings and townscape features. “Developing a network of streets and buildings on the Bath Quays North site therefore provides a significant opportunity to reinstate and reintegrate a part of the city that has remained effectively empty for a number of years.”