Football club has been open on plans
I write in response to Joe Scofield’s letter (Concerns over plans to develop Twerton, March 8) in the same capacity in which I wrote last July - “as a ‘community’ shareholder with a modest investment”.
I cannot let pass some of his emotionally-charged comments like “the moral framework underpinning this redevelopment is rotten”, talk of “fleecing students” and “the community venue looks to be
a boozy late-night nuisance”.
Joe rails against Bath City but is equally scathing of local residents who “don’t want housing built there” (on the re-development site).
1. The club was founded in 1889 and moved to Twerton Park in 1932 so has considerable history at Twerton. (Indeed, in one of his recent postings, Joe comments “Generally, I see the football club as having a good track record of treating the community decently”.) I wonder what the club has done to engender so much vitriol in his current comments? The basic scope of the club’s proposals has not changed since the first public consultation on 21st November 2017, including the student accommodation element. The club is entitled, surely, to improve its building stock as any other local resident might – eg addition of an extension, re-modelling of one’s house or flat ?
2. The only viable vehicle which allows the club to pay off its debts, and to provide 21st century facilities, is the building of student accommodation. The financial return from social housing (based on current, professionally-accredited economic modelling) is half that from student accommodation meaning that the club would need twice the amount of floor space to achieve the same income. The council would not allow the club to build twice as high nor is there anything like sufficient ground area to accommodate a doubled floorplate.
3. Students would be charged market rate – the same ‘market rate’ which Joe would expect to receive from any potential property sale he might contemplate personally. For “fleecing” read ‘charging the rate which years of unbridled inflation have forced on our economy’. 4. I cannot see why current plans for a social/bar facility, at a greater distance from Twerton residents than many local pubs, should attract such hostility.
5. In his social media comments Joe is very dismissive of the scale and appearance of the overall development – in particular the effect it will have from the High Street. Please look at the CGI clips
on http://www.bathcityfc.com/ watch-a-cgi-animation-of-twerton-park-high-street-redevelopment. Height may be challenged, environmental improvement surely not? The developer will invest his own money to do what neither the community nor B&NES can afford to do – transform the look of what is, currently, a rundown street frontage. As a result of Greenacre’s initiative public funding has now been attracted to supplement the developer’s contribution to improving the street environment.
6. Joe is very critical, on social media, of the club’s consultation process. I would refer him and your readers to the club’s website (www. bathcityfc.com) and the ‘TP REDEVELOPMENT’ section which reflects the many considered attempts by the club to inform the community of every step it has taken. The consultants have said that the club has engaged with its community far more extensively than any other club with whom
they have worked. John Moore Combe Down