Bath’s Roman heritage is helping the council to balance its budget and deal with the increasing cost of providing social care.
The Roman Baths | Photo © Bath & North East Somerset Council / Chris Wakefield
Built in the mid-first century AD for the health and wellbeing of what was then known as Aquae Sulis, the Roman Baths may no longer be suitable for bathing, but they are still serving public wellbeing in another way – by bringing in millions which Bath & North East Somerset Council uses to fund vital services.
The council’s income from the Roman Baths, together with the Pump Rooms and Victoria Art Gallery, is equivalent to how much it would make from charging an additional £151.23 a year in council tax for an average band D household.
Heritage Services is projected to deliver the council a surplus of £13.3 million in the next financial year.
Council cabinet member for resources Mark Elliott (Lansdown, Liberal Democrat) told a council scrutiny committee: “The income that we gain from things like heritage services benefits the whole area. It gets spent on things like social care.”
Social care is increasingly the main part of what councils spend their money on, making up 78% of Bath & North East Somerset Council’s net budget.
Once again, the council is planning to increase its spending on social care when it sets its budget for the next financial year later this month.
The council is now investing more in preventative services to reduce the number needing social care, which it says will be better for people as well as council finances in the long term.
Adult and children’s social care is a statutory service for councils, but costs in the sector are rising more quickly than councils’ abilities to generate income.
Like most councils responsible for social care, Bath & North East Somerset Council is once again proposing to raise council tax by the maximum 4.99%.
This will bring in just over £7 million more in council tax next year, but Councillor Elliott said the council also had to spend an additional £6.4 million on adults and children’s social care, after savings were taken into account.
He said: “I know that we sometimes get asked: ‘where does my council tax go?’ Primary, that is the answer. It goes on supporting the most vulnerable people in the area.”
Buying a ticket to visit the Roman Baths helps to do the same thing. Bath and North East Somerset residents do not need to buy a ticket to see the attraction, as they can get in for free with a council discovery card.
The council had considered introducing a “small charge” for the currently free cards to make a £50,000 saving, but dropped the proposal after a public outcry.
The idea of introducing a charge for the cards generated about a third of all responses to the council’s budget consultation.
Councillor Elliott was speaking at a council scrutiny committee meeting on 3rd February to scrutinise the council budget, but part of the meeting ended up being a debate over the merits of Bath’s status as a tourist hotspot.
Chair of the committee, Councillor Robin Moss (Westfield, Labour) said: “£150 for the average household is a significant bonus if that’s the right way of putting it. But that bonus does come with significant cost – and is that a bonus worth having if it stops us generating income in other ways through growth in the economy?”
He said that when he had moved to the area 18 years ago, the council had been focused on high-value and creative industries.
He told the meeting: “I think that we have lost that focus and actually moving to a tourist economy with the pay that goes with retail, that goes with tourism, that goes with hospitality is to the detriment of Bath and North East Somerset, Bath in particular.”
He said: “Many people that service the tourism industry in Bath have to live in North East Somerset because there isn’t housing and they can’t afford housing in Bath.”
In December, the council’s opposition Labour group, who all represent areas outside of the city, called for the council to “fully assess” the economic benefits of Bath’s UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
It is part of a row over whether the city should drop the prestigious status in order to enable more development.
Councillor Elliott said he did not agree that Bath’s tourist destination status did prevent other forms of economic growth.
But, speaking later in the meeting, he said that there was also an “acknowledged downside” to being one. He said: “I love the fact that we are a major tourist destination, but using the tourist levy to be able to raise funds to mitigate against some of the impact of that will be useful to us.”
The council’s cabinet member for economic and cultural sustainable development, Councillor Paul Roper (Kingsmead, Liberal Democrat), who was at the meeting to discuss the council’s heritage services business plan, added: “I value the food and beverage sector, the restaurant sector, and the tourist sector very highly.
“It’s going to drive a lot of people to our city in 2026. I’m confident the numbers are going to be good.”
John Wimperis, Local Democracy Reporter
