A Bath B&B which has been opening seven rooms to guests since 2012, in breach of a condition which limits it to just three, has been granted a Certificate of Lawfulness.
Crescent Gardens in Bath | Image © Google Street View / Google 2025
2 Crescent Gardens, which is also known as Bridgnorth House, has been run as a B&B/guest house since 1988, when the three-room limit was set, but that condition was flouted from the start, according to a report.
Last October an application to use seven rooms for guest accommodation at the Victorian semi-detached property was submitted to Bath & North East Somerset Council.
Planning rules state that where there has been a breach of planning control, no enforcement action can be taken after 10 years.
Although the breach was prior to 2012, the applicant’s planning consultants supplied evidence from that year onwards showing “a consistent breach in excess of 10 years during which time seven bedrooms have been used for guest accommodation”.
Their report says that in 1988, Bath City Council permitted the owner to use three rooms for B&B/guest house accommodation, with no more than five adult guests allowed at any one time.
In 1997 an application to vary that condition was successful. It removed the ‘personal permission’ and changed it to a maximum of three bedrooms in association with “primary private residential use”. The five-guest limit was also lifted.
The consultants’ report reveals that the initial three-room limit was not adhered to by those running the B&B at the time. From 1988 until 2006, four guest rooms were in operation and there were then five until 2009, which is when the business closed down temporarily.
It reopened in August 2012 following refurbishment as a seven-bed guest house.
B&NES Council planning officers, who assessed the application for a Certificate of Lawfulness for the existing use, decided that the evidence provided shows that 2 Crescent Gardens has been used continuously for at least 10 years as a seven-bed guest house, in breach of the three-room condition, and “on the balance of probability” is considered lawful.
