Statement of Intent of positive impacts of the Redevelopment

13 Jun 2019

As part of the Planning Application, the Club has submitted a Statement of Intent that spells out the expected Social & Community, Economic and Environmental benefits of the proposed development.

Please download and read the full document

The Statement summarises that:

“This is a development that delivers a broad range of economic, social and environmental benefits in an area of deprivation that needs support and investment. It secures the Club’s long-term future at the heart of its community providing a crucial social nexus; creates a base for youth and charitable football under the Bath City banner; creates a new 3G pitch for use by the whole community from schools to charities to leisure; secures the future of existing jobs and creates more as well as supporting employment in the wider area; provides new affordable housing; employs high levels of environmental provision including reducing carbon emissions, planting of new trees and removing negative buildings and more. It is a generational opportunity to dramatically enhance Twerton.”

If you haven’t already, please visit the Bath & North East Somerset Council Planning Portal and register your support for your Club’s Planning Application.

Register your comments – please select ‘Support’ if you are in favour.

View the full Application

The Statement lists a number of positive impacts the Club has already made including:

Given 156 hours of free room rental to 13 local charities and third sector groups
Provided another 800+ hours of discounted facilities to a local children’s charity
Visited 15 different schools to talk about the benefits of sport and invited them to a match –  over 2,000 children and parents/guardians have attended games for free or at a reduced  price
Provided its inflatable beat-the-goalie to 11 school or community fetes, free of charge,  raising £100s for PTAs
Provided hundreds of hours of free and discounted coaching through its Bath City  Community Sports Foundation
Run teams for hundreds of children and hosted an annual youth tournament at Twerton Park enjoyed by thousands through Bath City Youth
Provided numerous volunteering roles to secondary school pupils, Bath College students and students from both universities as well as local working age and retired members of the community
Welcomed record numbers of local people to its pay-what-you-want and Family Day matches
Directly raised £2,500 and wider public awareness for its charity of the season, Great Western Air Ambulance
Engaged directly and substantively with multiple third sector organisations including: Bath MIND, Julian House including the refugee resettlement programme and foodbank scheme, Southside Project, Action for Children, Threeways, Bath City Farm, the Stroke Association, Bath 3SG, St Mungo’s, BaNES Public Health department, the Community Playbus, Time2Share, Bath Area Play Project, Time Bank, Quartet Community Foundation, Dream Big Twerton, WEA Adult Learning, Localgiving

It then goes on to explain some of the likely additional benefits:

Bath City Football Club plans to install a FIFA Quality Pro all-weather pitch at its Twerton Park stadium as part of the redevelopment.

This is a sustainable community venture for the Club that will benefit a wide range of individuals, communities and organisations across the city of Bath. The pitch will help secure the Club’s future in Twerton by introducing a vital new revenue stream and facilitating “One Club” operations, acting as a single hub for the 800+-strong football club family of the Community Sports Foundation, Bath City Youth, Bath City Academy, Women’s and University teams.

Discounted sporting facilities for local schools and charities will be provided and there will be much needed capacity for the private hire sector. The pitch will support the provision of public health initiatives, actively reduce social isolation and increase opportunities to participate in sport in an area of acute deprivation.

Long-term anticipated outcomes include an improvement in rates of physical activity both in the Twerton area and across Bath and North East Somerset. The Club expect this, in turn, to have a positive impact on health and the rate of obesity amongst children and adults in the area, addressing the current levels of health inequality between the city of Bath and the Twerton area.

This project is needed because:
Twerton, Whiteway and Southdown have the lowest levels of physical activity and highest levels of obesity in the city, and life expectancy in parts of Twerton is nine years shorter than in other areas of Bath.
21% of Twerton residents have long-term health conditions compared with 10% in Widcombe.
Nearly a third of over-16s in Twerton have no qualifications, and unemployment is at 6%, which means that Twerton is the only Bath ward above the national average.
38% of children in Twerton are living in poverty.

The lack of sports facilities available for community use in Bath is a problem that affects the whole city, so it is anticipated that the new pitch will be of benefit to the wider area as well as the immediate communities of Twerton, Whiteway and Southdown.

Local youth teams and charities will be able to make use of the facility to run sports projects, and the Club intends to build on existing partnerships and relationships to ensure as many local residents as possible are benefiting from the facility. For example, it will work closely with the B&NES Third Sector Group (3SG), who have a membership of 200 local charities and social enterprises, to ensure that hard- to-reach volunteer-run community groups and small charities in the locality can access the facilities on offer.

A new pitch, in the heart of an area of acute deprivation, will allow the Club to build on its existing community impact and achieve even more, with 30 to 45 hours of pitch time available for community use. Increased youth football via Bath City Youth will mean more teams for hundreds more children, while new public health and wellbeing provision via Bath City Football Club’s charitable foundation will include activities such as Man v Fat, Walking Football, Disability Football, Mental Health Football, School Holiday Schemes, Women and Girls programmes and more. The Foundation also plans to begin social prescribing with the local GP to address obesity and social isolation and also holiday hunger for local children on free school meals. Reduced-price daytime rental to schools in the immediate vicinity could also be provided in the face of declining school budgets and limited access to year round recreation facilities.

As well as providing the hard benefits of greater sporting opportunities for people in Twerton and the wider city, the Club believes that regularly attracting a diverse range of people from across the city to Twerton (including those living in new developments) will help break down barriers between the city and the area.

The report then turns to Economic Benefits:

There are numerous economic benefits that will arise as a result of the redevelopment project including the provision of new jobs for local people.

New employment opportunities will be created during the construction phase of the project as well as through the management and operations of the new buildings once complete. This includes the community facilities such as the gym, community hub and sports bar.

Bath City Football Club currently employs a number of people in a range of full and part time roles equivalent to 19 full time employees. It is anticipated that the new grandstand facilities will protect and support at least 21 full time equivalent jobs at the Club. The presence of Bath City in Twerton also indirectly supports jobs in local retail, food and beverage outlets.

The new facilities and increased activity at the Club will include:

The provision of the FIFA Quality Pro all-weather pitch
New food and beverage outlets
New hospitality lounges and boxes
New purpose-built gym
New lettable space
Multi-function community space
A social club
New sports bar

The enhanced retail provision on Twerton High Street and management of the Co-Living housing and student accommodation offer will also create a number of new jobs.

A new student population within Twerton as well as the creation of the Co-Living apartments will raise local footfall levels and help boost the local economy. According to Oxford Economics, students in Bath spend approximately £206million on food, transport and social activities annually, and contribute £145.9million to the Bath and North East Somerset GDP.

The provision of, and easy access to, hot desking space and facilities within the clubhouse would also aid Twerton hosting some smaller businesses (rather than them having to move to central Bath), whilst also encouraging local entrepreneurship and likely job creation.

Lastly the statement addresses Environmental Benefits:

There are numerous environmental benefits to the proposed scheme. These include the following:

The removal of buildings that are deemed to be negative features in the Bath Conservation Area.
An enhanced High Street with public realm improvements, an updated retail offer and the provision of dedicated parking/loading bays (including on Dominion Road).
Better-quality community facilities for Twerton.
The provision of high-quality on-site public spaces and landscaping (including green walls) that
can be enjoyed by all users of the site and members of the local community.
An opportunity for off-site tree planting to take place within Innox Park (subject to Council discussions).
Enhancement to the setting of the Grade II listed Rose Cottage by virtue of the removal of less attractive buildings and the introduction of public realm measures at the junction of High Street/Dominion Road.
An opportunity to provide a net gain in biodiversity through the provision of on-site bat and bird nesting boxes.
The replacement of inefficient existing buildings with ones that are low-carbon generating and sustainable by virtue of the following:
o The development will deliver a 22% reduction of carbon emissions from anticipated energy use across all of the buildings on the site.
o Theprovisionofwaterefficientfixturesandfittingssuchaslowflushtoiletsand taps would be used to help reduce site water consumption and demands on waste water services.
o Arainwatercollectionsystem,includingrainwaterharvestingfromtheroofofthe student accommodation block and above-ground water butts with gravity-fed outlets located in the communal courtyard.
o A green wall incorporated into the northern elevation of the affordable housing. An operational waste management strategy will improve the current waste management of the residential and commercial uses, providing an efficient system for the proposed development.

An operational waste management strategy will improve the current waste management of the residential and commercial uses, providing an efficient system for the proposed development.

If you agree that this development will have a positive impact for Twerton as well as Bath City Football Club, then please Register your comments – and select ‘Support’.

Thank you.