We attended the last meeting of the BANES Working Group- “options to strengthen community representation and civic governance within Bath “. The meeting had a very good cross party discussion of two options for giving a little more influence over what happens in Bath to either a Bath committee of Bath ward councillors or a Bath Parish/city council.
Our concern is that if you talk to people in Bath about the issue of governance they talk about things like:
· Retaining money generated by Bath in Bath and in particular keeping control of the money generated by the Cities commercial an heritage estate
· Control over planning decisions
· Control over investment in infrastructure
· A real city mayor
Almost all of which will not be delivered by any of the options under consideration by the working group.
We are not aware of how BANES is planning to manage the potential gap between public expectations and their current discussions.