Councillors have all had a letter from St James Investment advising them that the Tesco planning application for this site is about to be resubmitted.
It does not have a planning application number yet and when it does it will be published to enable residents to have their say on the application.
Letter
Dear Councillor
New Bath Press proposal: changes to enable support of city regeneration projects
Many congratulations on your re-election. I’m writing to let you know that, this week, St James’ Investments and Tesco have submitted an additional planning application for the Bath Press site.
The mixed use development will look the same, with the community space replaced to provide additional creative work units and flexible office space.
The new proposals will both increase the future employment opportunities on the site, and will also enable a significant financial contribution to be offered to the council, as part of a Section 106 agreement, to support its regeneration strategy.
These changes follow more than three years of consultation and discussions with local people and B&NES council. We’ve learnt from this process that more than 90% of local people (of those who took part in our public consultation last year) gave their support to the site regeneration, with 76% welcoming a mixed-use development.
Other than replacing the community space, the original plan remains the same: a mixed use development of creative work units and flexible office space; a public square; terraced housing designed for families not students; and a supermarket.
We estimate that the development could create up to 600 jobs on a site which has been disused for a number of years.
Currently 24% of people in the Bath area, who could do their weekly food shopping in the city, drive to supermarkets such as the Asda in Longwell Green and in Trowbridge, Sainsbury’s in Bradford on Avon and the Tesco stores at Trowbridge, Brislington and Paulton. The Tesco supermarket will cater for people doing their weekly shopping; will encourage people to shop in Bath; and will provide healthy competition to the other supermarkets currently operating in the city.
During the consultations many people expressed concern about the volume of traffic currently on the Lower Bristol Road. As a result our plans have adapted signalling and road layout to ensure good traffic flow and help minimise congestion. While our plans include an underground car park with 400 spaces, they will also make it easy for people to walk, cycle and take the bus to the site.
The new plan will retain the high quality approach to design St James Investments and Tesco have championed throughout, while allowing the Bath Press site to generate more jobs as well as supporting the Council’s regeneration strategy.
Yours
Patrick Leavey
On behalf of St James Investments Ltd