Local
news from BATH England. Bad news from the United Kingdom’s
World Heritage City Site.
Back to BATH campaign
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The last
Government re-organization of Local Government in 1996 presided
over an enforced political marriage between the City BATH and the
surrounding district of Wansdyke to form the uneasy and
unbalanced unitary authority of the
District of BATH & North East Somerset (B&NES),
That
turned to be bad news for BATH England.
After ten years of B&NES, and despite the best efforts of
Councillors and Council Officers, it is obvious to citizens of
BATH that the experiment of amalgamating a city with the
surrounding countryside has failed.
BATH has lost out.
The City
of BATH has lost many things in the last ten years.
The most significant losses are:
*
Its City
Council.
After two thousand years of history, BATH has lost its identity
as a City. The citizens of BATH are no longer in effective
political control of their own City and haven’t been for a
decade. If BATH is to have a future then it is essential that the
citizens regain control of their own City in some form.
Ideally, that would be a unitary authority. But with yet another
Local Government re-organization promised soon we await to see
the fate of our City.
*
The dispersal of the City’s property portfolio. After years of painstaking
effort building up the City’s property portfolio it is being
sold & leased off in a scramble to pay off B&NES’
debts. Soon the income that was previously available for the
welfare of the City will not be there.
*
BATH nearly lost its Mayor in
the amalgamation, an office dating from 1230. When it was
realised that there could not be a Mayor of B&NES, the
situation saved by the institution of a charter Mayor for BATH.
B&NES has a Chairman.
Control of
the public realm in the City Bath has the privilege of being the United
Kingdom's only World Heritage City site in Europe sharing the
honour with Venice & its Lagoon. The UNESCO Convention World
Heritage List sets the criteria for nomination . BATH England was
nominated because it satisfies three of the six criteria. The
City of BATH:
(i) represents a masterpiece of human creative genius
(ii) exhibits an important interchange of human values, over a
span of time on development in architecture, technology,
monumental arts, town planning and landscape design
(iii) is an outstanding example if a type of building or
architectural ensemble which illustrates significant stages in
human history
BATH has 4 980 buildings listed for their architectural and
historical interest.
How did
this happen ?
. The 1996 local government re-organization amalgamated BATH
& former Wansdyke, despite the protests of Wansdyke.
Originally, the new authority was to be named North East
Somerset. BATH was incorporated in the title at the last moment
to form BATH & North East Somerset or B&NES, know locally
by the baleful and depressing name of 'banes'. A ‘bane’
incidentally, is. a slayer or murderer, that which causes murder,
death or destruction or causes ruin or woe and the rot in sheep.
(Shorter OED). Not a very encouraging start for the new unitary
authority.
Back to
Bath campaign
Directly after the amalgamation, two BATH citizens formed a
campaign to remove BATH from B&NES. Named the BACK to BATH
campaign, it was started by Anna Harper - a BATHonian born and
bred in BATH and
Brian Cassidy - an incomer with 30 years residence in the City to
be joined by Jill Attwood - an Honorary Alderman of the City and
Eric Snook -a BATHonian and former Mayor of BATH .
The objective of the BACK to BATH campaign is to return the City
of BATH to the control of its citizens with a City Council as a
unitary authority or its equivalent.
It is non-party political. It has no sponsors. It has no external
source of funds.
It is a single-issue campaign. Once it has achieved its
objective, it will no longer be needed.
The Campaigners are convinced that no less than the future of the
city is at stake.
BATH &
North East Somerset
The two partners in the authority are absolutely and completely
different.
The physical makeup is as different as their aspirations.
BATH is a city with a population of 86 777, situated on the
extreme eastern corner of B&NES on a ‘hook’ of land
reaching round to the east and north of the city, as narrow as
500 metres in places.
North East Somerset (former Wansdyke), the unwilling partner to
the marriage, is rural with two small urban areas with a
population of 80 200.
The total population of the new unitary authority of B&NES is
about
167 000 persons.
The population density of BATH is 27. 4 persons per hectare.
The population density of North East Somerset is 2. 5 person per
hectare
BATH occupies 2 868 hectares (7 084 acres)
North East Somerset (Wansdyke) occupies 32 245 hectares (79 645
acres) of which 75% or 24 183 hectares (60 000 acres) are
agricultural
North East Somerset has 1 528. listed buildings
Strategy for Change, the document that set out the proposed
amalgamation stated that …BATH and Wansdyke would unite as
equal partners …and that …neither BATH or Wansdyke
would dominate. B&NES council has 65 Councillors, 32 of who
represent BATH Wards. The Council is 'hung' as no political party
has a voting majority. On all issues, the BATH Councillors can be
outvoted.
Some senior Council Officers are known to be concerned and many
Councillors have even admitted the failure publicly.
B&NES has proved unable to take the stewardship of Britain's
Heritage city site seriously. The present situation within
B&NES is one of widespread exasperation and dissatisfaction.
Witness the running and operation of the Council, the lack of
city management, the inability of the planning department to
cope, the perennial traffic problem and the state of the roads
and footpaths. Under B&NES, BATH has suffered a marked
decline in public services and is now increasingly neglected and
down at heel. The letter columns of THE BATH CHRONICLE, the local
paper, have been filled with an astounding avalanche of criticism
of B&NES.
Parliamentary Petition
The BACK
to BATH campaign organised a Parliamentary Petition for BATH
citizens and anyone else who is interested enough in BATH and the
future of the City to sign, to tell the then Secretary of State
that they wished to remove BATH from B&NES to form a new
unitary authority in its own right -the CITY of BATH .
Jill Attwood and Anna Harper collected nearly 13 000 signatures.
They had to stop collecting so that it could be presented to the
House of Commons by BATH ’s Member of Parliament, Don Foster
MP, on Thursday 13 June 2002 with a short speech.
He said:
“ I wish to present this non-party political petition with
more than 12 000 signatures from my constituency and the local
Chamber of Commerce and many small businesses concerned about
what they see as the deteriorating state of the City of Bath. It
seeks to have Bath - a World Heritage site - with a Mayoralty
dating back to 1230 AD, but now with an administrative
headquarters outside the City of Bath in Keynsham, restored to
unitary status. For over of a thousand years Bath was in charge
of its own affairs and the petitioners seek to return to that
situation.”
The Petition read:
PETITION FROM Mrs ANNA HARPER AND MR BRIAN CASSIDY AND OTHERS
To the Honourable Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled
The Humble Petition of Mrs Anna Harper and Mr Brian Cassidy and
others of like disposition
Sheweth
That being citizens of the former City of Bath Urban District in
the County of Avon and now lately amalgamated with the District
of Wansdyke to form the District of Bath & North East
Somerset in the County of Somerset, we wish that the City of Bath
be removed from the jurisdiction of Bath & North East
Somerset to a new Unitary Authority to be named the City of Bath.
Werefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House shall
urge the Secretary of State for the Environment Transport and the
Regions to consider the plight of the citizens living in the
Parliamentary constituency of Bath and others devoted to the
maintenance and continued well-being of the City of Bath,
recognising its unique position of a World Heritage Site, to
restore to the City to the status of a Unitary Authority able to
take control and govern in its own right as the City of Bath
No acknowledgement of the Petition was ever received from the
Minister or Department concerned. The top copy of the petition is
preserved in perpetuity, the other sheets destroyed.
A 40 minute interview with the Minister was also arranged by
Bath's MP Don Foster on Wednesday 19 March 2003. Three
BACK-to-BATH campaigners put the case that the present situation
of Bath & North East Somerset Council, in which the City of
Bath is amalgamated with the mainly rural former Wansdyke
District Council, is not working and is highly detrimental to the
City and its future. The arrangement is not welcomed by former
Wansdyke. Bath has a special place as the United Kingdom's only
World Heritage city site
The BACK-to-BATH campaigners feel that it is getting even more
urgent, as yet another Local Government re-organization is upon
us. For the well-being of the City Bath must have an independent
voice, as it had for about a thousand years.
The administration must be restored to Bath so that the City is
run by people
who know and understand its unique character and needs.
The
BACK-to-BATH campaign is vitally concerned with the future of the
City.
If you are interested in the future of BATH or agree with us and
feel that you can help us in any way, please:
contact us on 01225 33 6804 or 01225 31 0157
or
E-mai-l us on mbcass@waitrose.com
or
write or fax to the Member for Bath:
Don Foster MP
21 James Street West
BATH BA1 2BT
t: 01225 33 8972
fax: 01225 463630
or write or E-mai-l to:
Rt Hon Ruth Kelly M.P.
The Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government
Or
Phil Woolas M.P.
The Minister of State
House of Commons
LONDON
SW1A 0AA
E mai l
Enquiryodpm@communities.gsi.gov.uk
Bath needs all the help it can get
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