Jobs boost with plans for new cocktail bar and café in central Bath

Plans for a new cocktail bar and café in the city centre have been revealed.

The former Fly Fitness Gym in Bath

Full planning and listed building consent is being sought from Bath & North East Somerset Council to refurbish and convert vacant 3-4 Bath Street to provide a cocktail bar and café.

To be called Charlotte’s in Bath Street, it will create jobs for 25 full-time and 34 part-time employees.

The premises are part of a Grade I listed terrace built in the 1790s. The application is from the team behind Charlotte’s in The Pantiles in Royal Tunbridge Wells, described as “another historic, listed and sensitive setting within a spa city”.

The application involves the lower ground, ground, and first floors and includes repair, reinstatement and conservation work, particularly to the historic vaults, pavement lights and other retained features.

The premises, which have four flats on the upper floors, have had a wide variety of commercial uses over the years and were combined into a single banking operation in 1978.

The plans show that the lower ground floor will be used for food preparation areas, storage, staff accommodation, office space, and a small snug bar. The vaults will be brought back into use and repurposed for wine, keg, refuse, and storage.

There will be a cocktail bar, café, and associated kitchen facilities on the ground floor. The first floor will have a series of dining spaces and there will be outside seating under the colonnade on Bath Street and Bilbury Lane.

No change of use is required for the café element on the ground floor as there was one there as part of the last occupier, Fly Fitness gym.

A study found that the current ventilation system has relatively noisy extractor fans, which were suitable when it was a gym. A system that will reduce noise is proposed. New air conditioning units will be installed using existing vents.

The gym opening hours were 6am to 10pm. Charlotte’s proposed hours are 8am to 11pm Monday to Saturday and 10am to 10pm on Sundays and bank holidays.

The planning reference is 26/03562/LBA. Consultation ends on 22nd October.

Advertising consent for signs on the building has already been approved.