Council says there are no plans to drop Bath's UNESCO status
Council leader Kevin Guy says they want to work with UNESCO on protecting the city’s heritage, while still allowing more affordable homes to be built
The leader of Bath and North East Somerset Council has said there are no plans to give up Bath's UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
Kevin Guy has insisted that it has “no intent at all” to drop Bath’s UNESCO status in a statement on the council website and letter to residents.
Bath is the only entire city in the UK to be designated as a world heritage site, but this has made building new housing a challenge.
Last week, the council’s cabinet member for housing Matt McCabe told a scrutiny committee that, in order to change the wording of its UNESCO inscription to permit the building of a much-needed new suburb, Bath would need to be delisted and then reapply to be a world heritage site.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has been told that Mr McCabe had incorrectly described the process for changing the UNESCO inscription, and that it was unlikely to require the city to delist as a world heritage site. It is unclear what the actual process would be.
Mr McCabe told Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The technical process for any change to the wording of our unique double inscribed listing is very complex and, indeed, uncertain as we are in unprecedented territory. There most certainly is no policy to ask the government to relinquish our world heritage listing.
“We are seeking further clarity on how we can work together to protect the value our listing brings in terms of heritage protection and authority wide economic benefit, whilst also facilitating the provision of much needed affordable homes.”
In his weekly email to Bath and North Somerset residents on October 1, Mr Guy said: “I want to start my update by being absolutely clear that there is no intent at all for Bath to relinquish its unique double inscribed world heritage status. Indeed, we want to work with the UNESCO on creating a city that is an exemplar to the world on how heritage can be protected, whilst tackling the growing need for affordable homes.
“Everyone agrees there is a desperate need for more affordable houses in Bath and across the UK. These homes are best placed in areas that already have good transport links, and have the capacity to be designed to the best environmental levels, making them cheap to live in.
“To that end we are and will continue to apply pressure on central government to liaise with ICOMOS/UNESCO on the best way to protect the uniqueness of Bath, without limiting its capacity to grow and adapt to our changing environment.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council has been told by the government that it needs to find space for 27,340 new homes across the district over the next 18 years. The council wants to allocate land on the western edge of the city for 2,000-home new suburb as it would be close to jobs or transport links, but is unable to do so because the current wording of its UNESCO inscription protects Bath’s setting in “a hollow in the hills.”
At a council scrutiny committee on September 24, Mr McCabe told councillors: “Politically, everybody thinks that’s the best place for the city to expand. We have to change the wording of the UNESCO World Heritage inscription.”
He, at the time, described the process as requiring the government to submit the changes to the international council on monuments and sites (ICOMOS) who would then make a recommendation to UNESCO. He said Bath would be delisted as a world heritage site and have to reapply but said: “I don’t think there is, in my view, any reason why UNESCO wouldn’t allow us to rejoin.”
Bath first became a world heritage site in 1987. It later became a world heritage site twice over when it was inscribed as part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe World Heritage Site in 2021. It is a fact of which the council and city is proud, and tourism driven to the council-owned Roman Baths directly subsidises council operations.
But the restrictions around building in the world heritage site have led the council to allocate for Bath only a quarter of the new homes it has been told to build. This has put the council cabinet — all but one of whom represent wards in or adjacent to Bath — under pressure from councillors in other areas of the district who are now seeing major and unpopular housebuilding in their wards.
The 5,900 new homes which would be built in Bath is only fractionally more than the 5,700 proposed in Keynsham, despite the town being five times smaller. Andy Wait (Keynsham East, Liberal Democrat) said the proposed local plan looked “blatantly unfair.”
He warned the plan would be unpopular in rural communities and towns where locals do not want new homes, and unpopular in Bath where locals do. He said: “You have actually created a plan that is pretty unpopular everywhere in Bath and North East Somerset.”
Opposition Labour councillors — who all represent wards outside of the city — have previously called for the city to scrap the world heritage site status in order to take a greater share of housing. Labour group leader Robin Moss said recently: “UNESCO is proud of other World Heritage Site cities where the locals aren’t priced out.”
A six-week public consultation on the local plan runs until October 30. This will be the final opportunity for people to comment on the plan before it is submitted to the government for approval.