Issue - meetings

A £1.235m funding package to support Bath High Street Renewal has been secured from the West of England Investment Fund’s ‘Love our High Street’ grant programme. A proposal put forward by B&NES Council via a Full Business Case focused on the northern part of Bath City centre, combining targeted public realm interventions with support for events, animation and culture on the streets and in public spaces focused on the Milsom Quarter and Kingsmead Square, together with other city centre wide interventions relating to outdoor trading. The project will support the Council’s Liveable Neighbourhoods agenda and seek to respond to the Climate and Ecological emergencies and the transition towards greener, less car dominated and accessible, people friendly High Streets.

This report requests agreement to accept the £1.235m funding from WECA in line with the Full Business Case approved by WECA on 25th June 2021. This report summarises the proposed project scope and includes economic and social impact analysis and a summary of pilot activities and engagement which has informed the project scope. The Report summarises key items of proposed spend, funding approval mechanisms and key deliverables and outputs anticipated.

Councillor Richard Samuel introduced the report by saying that our high streets have been struggling over the last 18 months, and help was needed to try and encourage footfall back into the city centre. The Cabinet were asked to agree that the funds that the Council had applied for, from the West of England Combined Authority, both for the ‘love of our high streets’ fund and for the recovery fund, now be drawn down so that the Council could begin the projects that were set out in the report. Councillor Samuel thanked WECA for enabling these funds which would be used wisely. The Council would work with the business community for the benefit of successful intervention.

Councillor Samuel thanked the team who have been working on this project and also partners who brought their own interesting ideas to the table.

Councillor Richard Samuel moved the recommendations.

Councillor Dine Romero seconded the motion by saying that it was clear pre-pandemic that high streets, including Bath city centre, were in need of help. Changes to shopping habits had sped up during the last year, due to lock downs and the fear many now have on spending time in potentially unsafe indoor spaces.  More people than ever were buying their goods and groceries on-line, yet many shops now stood empty.

The funding from WECA from the Love our High Streets has been welcomed as well as the £500k from the recovery fund.

The use of vacant shops and spaces was part of the regional culture and was a reminder of how important culture and arts were to the Council, to local businesses and individuals, particularly in terms of increasing jobs and opportunities locally.

Councillor Romero concluded by saying that she did recognise that there was not a great deal of detail yet on the equalities impact but that she would look carefully at the proposals coming forward, to make sure that in a drive for improvements to the local economy, and for more vibrancy in the city, the Council would not inadvertently disadvantage groups of residents or visitors.

RESOLVED (unanimously) that the Cabinet agreed to:

1  Delegate approval to the Director of Place Management, in consultation with the s151 officer, to accept the £1,235K Love our High Streets grant from WECA to be spent over a five year period in line with the Full Business Case and concept design approved.  This will allow full approval of confirmed capital of £1,102k for Bath City Centre High Street Renewal and provides £240K for revenue budget support as outlined in section 5 of this report. 

2  Delegate approval to the Director of Place Management, in consultation with the s151 officer, to accept £255k from the WECA Recovery grant offered to deliver phase 2 capital works to bring vacant shops back into active use for cultural and commercial and arts initiatives as part of the ‘vacant unit action project’.  The split between this programme and Commercial Estate Refurbishment and revenue budget support to be confirmed.