Decision details

The Legal & General development agreement for Bath Quays North expired on 19th July 2024 having not secured a viable or proceedable development.  The Council has taken back full control to consider alternative delivery options.  Consequently, a new delegation to commit further project expenditure against the budget provision is now required.

Two routes to delivery are being evaluated:

Firstly, through a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Bath to explore how their occupation of the site could be developed to meet both parties’ objectives.
Secondly, to establish occupier interest and explore further market appetite to deliver the scheme.

Costs are funded via approved WECA grant.

To provide authority for the team to use the proposed 2025/26 budget in pursuit of the project aims set out in the report.

Bath Quays North (BQN) is Bath’s main sustainable economy project tasked with creating a new employment quarter for the city through the delivery of a mixed-use scheme of up 38,000 sqm of accommodation in 2 phases.

The scheme has the following objectives.:

·  1,923 Direct on-site jobs (at steady state),

·  £329.8m GVA (over 30yr appraisal period),

·  £1,267,221 additional business rate per annum.

Detailed planning was granted on 8th August 2024.

Legal & General (L&G)

Over the last few years L&G have withdrawn from speculative development leaving the development team with no internal mandate to progress the scheme.

In addition, cost increases due to covid, supply issues and the Ukraine war resulted in an increased viability gap vs WECA funding, making the scheme unviable.

The parties agreed to allow the development agreement to expire on its longstop date of 19th July 2024 and L&G are no longer involved in the scheme.

Current Position

The Council are exploring a collaboration with the University of Bath (UoB) to assess how we work together to develop a vision for the future of BQN and a wider Bath Riverside Innovation Quarter. The parties have agreed a memorandum of understanding which provides a route to hold discussions on the formation of a partnership.

Members have also asked that alternative options are explored to be assured this is the most viable route to deliver the scheme.

The workstreams necessary to progress the scheme are detailed in the report, a summary of costs is detailed as appendix 1 of the report.

The intention is to deliver residential development on plots 6&7 via our development partner Aequus prior to the development of plots1-5.

To comply with the Outline Planning Permission, we need to commence work on plots 1-5 prior to 6&7. A package of works will need to be agreed and implemented in Q1 26.

None.