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About Bath

Pulteney Bridge, BathA Uniquely Historic City

Bath is a city in the southwest of England with a population of about 80,000, situated 159km west of London. Designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the city is the principal centre of the Bath and North East Somerset authority, which boasts a population of 170,000.

Bath was founded in the valley of the River Avon, around the only naturally occurring hot springs in the United Kingdom, by the Romans around AD63. Edgar was crowned king of England at Bath Abbey in 973 and Bath was granted city status by Queen Elizabeth I in 1590. It became popular as a spa resort during the Georgian era (18th century), which led to a major expansion that left a heritage of exemplary Georgian architecture crafted from Bath Stone. The city became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, and it is the only city in the world to be an UNESCO site in its entirety.

Bath has a variety of theatres, museums, and other cultural and sporting venues, which have helped to make it a major centre for tourism, with over one million overnight visitors and 3.8 million day visitors to the city each year. The city has two universities and several schools and colleges.

There is a large service sector and growing information and communication technology and creative industries, providing employment for the population of Bath and the surrounding area.

Planning and Transportation in Bath

Bath is not just a historic marvel, but a living, growing city that must constantly change in order to keep up the modern world. The nearly 4 million tourists per year are vital to the city's economy, but the resulting gridlock and pollution from cars and buses have decreased the quality of life. Some areas of Bath have been historically neglected — particularly along the riverfront to the south and west of the city centre — and the quality of the public realm has suffered in places.

In recent years, Bath has sought to reinvent itself, adopting a new approach to planning and transportation. Some of the notable initiatives are:

  • Enhancing the historic core of the city through improvements in the signage, lighting, pavement, and other elements of the public realm.
  • Encouraging the growth of both retail and residential functions in the city centre, anchored by new developments immediately to the north, south, and east of the historic core.
  • Building a new bus station and improved public transport hubs near the Central Rail Station and St. James' Rampire, and creating a high-speed Bus Rapid Transit corridor to shuttle people from park-and-rides into the city centre.
  • Building major new retail and residential developments in some of the historically neglected areas of Bath, primarily along the riverfront.

Change does not come easily to Bath; its residents are strongly (and justifiably) protective of their city, and all changes can expect to be thoroughly scrutinized by a very active and engaged civil society.

CIVITAS Renaissance cities

CIVITAS Renaissance in Bath

ATS is participating in the CIVITAS Renaissance Project, an EU-funded package to study and implement sustainable transportation projects in historic city environments. A principal idea behind CIVITAS is the use of cutting edge transport to alleviate the various problems that arise in cities, such as congestion and pollution.

"The CIVITAS Initiative helps cities to achieve a more sustainable, clean and energy efficient urban transport system by implementing and evaluating an ambitious, integrated set of technology and policy based measures." — CIVITAS Website

The Renaissance project is being carried out in five European cities, Perugia (Italy), Gorna Oryahovitsa (Bulgaria), Szczecinek (Poland), Skopje (Macedonia) and Bath (UK), with numerous partners involved in investigations into a variety of transport solutions.