Converting a historic hospital into a 160-bed hotel will assist Bath’s economic system recuperate from the Covid pandemic, a developer has claimed.
The proposed courtyard backyard on the web site | Image © The Fragrance Group
The Fragrance Group has submitted scaled again plans for the grade II*-listed Royal Mineral Water Hospital, higher often called the Min, after its earlier bid was refused – a call it’s set to enchantment.
The revised software says it has taken a brand new design method, diminished the size and mass of the extension, addressed residential amenity points and improved biodiversity.
Fragrance Group mentioned in its plans: “The proposals will safe the optimum viable use for the constructing, while on the identical time facilitating some continued public entry.
“The hotel will even be open to non-hotel visitors for these utilizing the restaurant, café/bars and guests arriving for conferences. The hotel will even be open on a number of days a yr for guided excursions on the historical past of the constructing.”
It added: “It is strongly within the public curiosity that the vacant constructing, which occupies a outstanding metropolis centre web site, is introduced again into helpful use to help the city’s post-Covid recovery plan. A protracted interval of emptiness will be damaging to the economic system of Bath’s metropolis centre.”
Who are Fragrance Group?
The NHS ran the constructing because the Royal National Hospital For Rheumatic Diseases till December 2019 after promoting the constructing to Winchester-based Versant UK Ltd for £15million.
It deliberate to show the hospital into a hotel with retailers on the bottom ground however was unable to safe the mandatory funding, so offered the location to Fragrance Group in 2018 for £21.5million.
The Singaporean funding agency, which has purchased and transformed a quantity of listed buildings within the UK, plans to spend an additional £35million changing the constructing.
What occurred to the earlier scheme?
The earlier scheme initially proposed a 167-bed hotel with a restaurant within the atrium linking the former hospital and the extension.
It was rejected after 187 objections and representations from the likes of the Bath Preservation Trust and the Federation of Bath Residents’ Associations.
Proposing refusal on the planning committee assembly final September, Councillor Sue Craig mentioned: “I commend the candidates for the compromises to minimise the impression on the constructing, its setting and neighbours. However, I do have an issue with the dimensions and mass of the extension.”
She mentioned it could be a few years earlier than the habitat recovers and the Fragrance Group’s use of “each inch” of land for the extension could be overbearing for Parsonage Lane residents.
Cllr Manda Rigby mentioned the extension would make life within the neighbouring properties “nearly untenable”, including: “For some of the flats on the decrease flooring, you’d nearly have to stay your head out the window and switch it round to see any sky in anyway.
“That’s not one thing we needs to be in favour of. It damages the residential amenity to such an extent it’s not counterbalanced by retaining the constructing in public use.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council didn’t object in precept to the conversion to a hotel.
What has the developer performed?
The Fragrance Group introduced in Bath corporations Aaron Evans Architect and Greenhalgh Landscape Architecture to handle the earlier refusal causes.
The adjustments embody:
An different design method to the extension “thought-about to be acceptable to the encircling context and the setting of the heritage asset”
A diminished scale and mass for the extension, and the connection to properties south of the location in Parsonage Lane has been addressed
Demonstrating a coverage compliant scheme in respect of residential amenity points
Relocating the roof prime plant concealing it inside the constructing envelope.
Introducing alternatives to extend mushy landscaping as half of an built-in method to the design of the location and to considerably enhance biodiversity
The growth – inside Bath’s deliberate “ring of metal” – will be automobile free and solely embody 12 cycle parking areas for workers.
B&NES Council will resolve the destiny of the applying.
Stephen Sumner, Local Democracy Reporter
