Bath Spa Project
Encyclopedia : B : BA : BAT : Bath Spa Project
The Bath Spa project is a regeneration project in the English town of Bath, designed to revitalise the tourist industry associated with Bath's natural spring waters, first used by the Romans. The spa water has not been available for the public to bathe in since a health scare in the 1970s; before then the city's swimming pool sourced its water directly from the King's Spring, through one of three pipelines beneath the Avon (this infrastructure remains in place to this day). The new spa building, however, is located in the historic heart of the world heritage city.
The new building, branded Thermae Bath Spa is externally finished, in the local "Bath Stone" (an Oolitic limestone) and with large expanses of glass. The curved glazed panels have become targets for vandals.
The project has become noted locally for having over-run its construction time significantly, due to a dispute.
It has also become somewhat controversial because of the great expense incurred in its construction, which many locally do not perceive as necessary. In this vein it has been noted that, were it not for the desired improvements to the city's identity such a new building could create, it would likely have been cheaper to use the extant infrastructure to re-open a "spa" bathing facility at the city's leisure centre.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.