On the face of it this project offers a number of benefits:
- An interesting and innovative attraction to bring visitors to City
- A project which will tidy up a neglected area on the river
- A project that will potentially find a use for the long neglected Bog Island
Clearly there will need to be much thought about the visual impact of this on a very sensitive part of the World Heritage Site. We note that BPT have questioned whether this is the right site.
As resident’s we have some immediate local concerns which need to be properly addressed:
- Privacy issues for those buildings and gardens which will be overlooked
- Details of proposed operating hours
- Noise impact of the machinery particularly on takeoff and landing
- How crowds, both riders and viewers, will be managed to minimise disruption in an already well used and difficult to manage part of the city
- What traffic implications will there be during construction and later operation?
- This is yet another proposal affecting this small area of the rivers so far we have the Rugby Stadium, the Stadium riverside, CART’s plans for the riverside, the Colonnades development and flood prevention works plus any impact of the EDZ. Who will be overseeing all this and making sure it all works together for the benefit of Bath?
- The docking station on Parade Gardens slope and would have to be to be above the high flooding level we experienced a couple. We monitored that level closely and it was up to the path, which means a docking station would almost certainly preclude the ‘under the colonnade area’ being used as one of the PG wedding venues as currently advertised. Also it would have to rise vertically to avoid the raised wall/railings. We need to understand how close that would be to some of our members apartments in the Empire.
- We are told that the flight path would not be near the Empire (by written agreement) technically it could get to within 26 metres of it. We understand most planning would set a limit of 23m or 70ft for normal structures. The structure itself is much longer than 26m.
- What safeguards prevent Aqueye being flown accidentally in the wrong direction into the Colonnades when taking off or landing?