Owners of Bath’s Mineral Hospital lodge appeal after hotel plans refused

A Singaporean funding group has lodged an appeal after its plans to show a Bath hospital right into a luxurious hotel have been refused.

The Fragrance Group has threatened to go to the Planning Inspectorate once more if Bath and North East Somerset Council additionally rejects its revised scheme for the Grade II*-listed former Royal Mineral Water Hospital. Councillors mentioned plans for a 164-bedroom hotel would overdevelop the positioning and make life within the neighbouring properties “nearly untenable”. In its appeal paperwork, Fragrance Group mentioned their claims weren’t nicely based and neighbours wouldn’t endure vital hurt in phrases of loss of mild. Planning committee members additionally criticised the failure to spice up biodiversity. The developer mentioned the arguments have been “baseless and unjustified” as a result of the Council’s Ecologist didn’t object, and it had dedicated to delicate landscaping onsite and tree planting elsewhere. Its representatives mentioned: “The appeal utility was formulated over a two-year interval in shut session with the native planning authority, Historic England and different stakeholders. “The precept of the proposed hotel use has been agreed because the optimum viable use by the principal events. “We can verify that the appellant is dedicated to implement both appeal scheme, or the second utility scheme that has been submitted in parallel with the planning appeal.” The Fragrance Group purchased the previous hospital in 2018 for £21.5 million and mentioned it might make investments £40 million within the challenge. The appeal paperwork mentioned it was finishing up upkeep and heating the constructing within the winter however that was not sustainable in the long run, including: “The appellant submits that it’s strongly within the public curiosity that the vacant constructing, which occupies a distinguished metropolis centre web site, is introduced again into helpful use. “A protracted interval of emptiness can be damaging to the financial system of Bath’s metropolis centre in phrases of loss of alternative arising from site-specific financial exercise, in addition to the damaging impact of extended emptiness on enterprise and funding confidence in Bath.”B&NES Council is but to answer the appeal or take into account Fragrance Group’s revised utility for a 160-bed hotel, which says it has taken a brand new design method, diminished the dimensions and mass of the extension, addressed residential amenity points and improved biodiversity.The revised proposals have been met with greater than 460 objections, greater than double that for the earlier scheme, though the influential Bath Preservation Trust is now in help. The developer mentioned if the brand new plans are refused, it is going to search to hitch the appeals collectively.Stephen Sumner, LDRS

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