Bath MP Don Foster has learnt that a whistle-stop tour of the city led to the Government’s decision on the number of new homes for Bath.  A Freedom of Information request revealed that Examination in Public (EiP) Panel members drove a route around Bath that could have taken no more than 45 minutes, before coming up with their recommendations. 

Don said this is, quite frankly, crazy.  This short drive around the edge of Bath has led to the Government accepting an increase to the size of the urban extension for the city and altering the ‘area of search’ within which the Council can decide where to build the new homes. 

These decisions are massively important to the future of the area, and yet the EiP has clearly spent less time considering them than the Council would spend on a planning application for 2 or 3 homes! 

This Regional Spatial Strategy has left many people unhappy, and to discover that key decisions have been made based on a short drive around the outskirts of the city is an insult to the people of Bath.