Bath & North East Somerset Council has set up a property company, which will allow it to operate as a commercial landlord and rent flats above council-owned shops. In future, it will also be able to look at potential housing developments on land it owns across the area.
This may be a good idea for getting better value out of under-used assets and providing more housing.
However, the processes has started off in a very inauspicious way with social housing tenants currently living above shops in the city centre receiving notices to quit often with little in the way explanation or offers of support.
This seems both insensitive and is some cases callous but it also adds to a worrying tendency for more and more social tenants to be pushed out of the city which both damages the character of the city in terms of its social makeup and displaces workers from the city adding to the city’s transport issues.