Guild Living, Bath Riverside
We obtained planning permission, following a six-day inquiry, on behalf of innovative housing-with-care developers, Guild Living, for their Integrated Retirement Community located within the Bath World Heritage Site and adjacent to the River Avon.
The development provides extra care / housing-with-care and is focused on creating an enabling environment. Residents are able to enjoy independent, active and engaged lives within the community. The mixed use scheme comprises 288 homes for older people, including housing-with-care, accommodation for the very frail and those with dementia and cognitive conditions and an element of office accommodation to support local employment.
New pedestrian streets crossing the site link adjacent communities with retail and employment centres and provide new high-quality areas of landscaped public realm – improving the townscape and providing opportunities for all generations to meet and connect.
A range of publicly accessible shared facilities, such as a restaurant and wellness centre create an age inclusive development.
Our Solutions
The scheme delivers a large number of homes to address the critical need for high quality accommodation with care for older people, and to address the Council’s housing need.
The high-quality design has considered the location of the site within the World Heritage Site, the sensitive ecology and the need for enhanced landscaping. The new public realm and excellent townscape improves the relationship of this part of Bath with the River Avon and wider City.
The development will provide an integrated retirement community, with on-site care, which can be scaled to the needs of the residents. A full suite of communal facilities such as a gym, library, café and extensive landscaped gardens will encourage activity and interaction, with the objective of improving health and wellbeing and combatting the onset of frailty and dementia.
The Outcome
Having secured support from planning officers, the planning committee refused permission. Following an appeal, which found that the planning committee had erred in their consideration of the application, permission was granted. The appeal determined that the substantial benefits of the development outweighed the effects on the Bath World Heritage Site. The inspector agreed with the evidence given by Nexus at the inquiry, that there were significant scheme benefits which weighed in favour of the scheme, including health benefits, employment and economic benefits and housing supply benefits.
