Planning Services Agreement

Bath Western Riverside is a major component of the Council's SHLAA and housing delivery trajectory. The project was committed in 2010 and has successfully delivered 854 new homes with 25% affordable housing within phase 1.

Bath Western Riverside Phase 2 (the Site) is the former Bath gas works site. The Site is part owned by the Council (which owns 31.5%), and part owned by St William Homes LLP (part of the Berkeley Group) (Berkeley) (which owns 68.5%). The Council intervened to acquire its part of the Site in 2019 for regeneration purposes with the objective to maximise the provision of affordable housing delivered given the viability challenges faced from the former land uses and site conditions.

In order to comply with both planning and strategic housing aims, the Council must obtain a minimum number of affordable housing units across the Site as a whole and therefore has the option to either: procure the construction of such units itself, being restricted to its own part of the Site; or to increase provision by acquiring units from Berkeley (additionality) which will be constructed on Berkeley's land.

Full details of the Council's intentions for the delivery of the housing scheme are set out in the Transparency Notice, notice identifier: 2026/s 000-043335 published 12 May 2026.

To achieve the intended outputs for the new affordable housing scheme, Berkeley will undertake planning services on behalf of the Council to secure satisfactory planning permission (residential blocks with ancillary infrastructure) over the current Council land which does not yet have planning permission. Berkeley has already secured planning permission over its part of the Site.

To the extent Berkeley receives consideration for these services from the Council, such sums will be below the threshold for the services under the Procurement Act 2023, as further set out below.