Imagine a whole city designed around health and wellbeing. Let's make it happen.
Over 2,000 years ago people settled in Bath because of its natural and ‘healing’ thermal waters. The Romans created a whole complex dedicated to wellness. And the Georgians planned a revolutionary ‘therapeutic landscape’ with new parks and public spaces where people could ‘take the cure’.
A whole city designed to promote health, that’s quite a story.
Today, when cities all around the world are vying to offer the best quality of life and promote physical and mental wellness, we think Bath has a fantastic opportunity to build on its unique story, not as a Georgian or Roman city, but as a Wellbeing City reinvented for the 21st Century.
Bath has the history and authenticity to position itself as the UK’s leading centre for wellbeing.
Bath and North East Somerset Council (B&NES), 2006
Why wellbeing?
Good for residents.
It would help create a city that’s good for everyone and a template for other cities to follow.
Good for the visitor economy.
It would be Bath’s differentiator. It would build on its unique appeal and help create a thriving and hugely attractive, liveable city.
Good for attracting investment.
It would help develop a desirable quality of life that will attract employers and employees.
Good for B&NES.
It would help improve physical and mental health for a more resilient population, which in turn might mean reduced spend on adult social care.
A Wellbeing City Action
Plan for Bath
Decision-makers, city groups, designers, health practitioners, and the community must work together to explore what a healthy, sustainable city should look like today. Wellbeing could be made central to everything.
We’ve developed a 10 point action plan for inspiration. It includes a range of ideas to help make Bath’s residents and visitors happier and healthier…in mind, body and spirit.
Water water everywhere
Embracing our spa culture and natural water assets.
Nature cure
Introducing more green. Connecting more green.
Clean and green
Less cars, more walking, cycling and public transport.
Mind and body
Encouraging people to get out and about.
Come together
More events, occasions and opportunities for shared experience.
Warm Bath
Warm, energy-efficient and more affordable homes for everyone.
Slow food revolution
Healthy eating and growing.
Play on
Making the city fun for children, and adults too.
Relax and restore
Promoting calm, tranquility and restfulness.
Feast for the senses
Creating sensory gardens and experiences.
When architects and designers create new places, it’s often on a relatively micro level where it’s easier to build in the ingredients for good health from the start. But what about existing places? We’re interested in how wellbeing could be a transformative theme on a city-scale.
Rob Delius, Head of Sustainability, Stride Treglown
Imagining Bath as a world-famous Wellbeing City
In February 2023, we were invited by Bath BID to present our ideas at the launch of Rebalance Bath, a new Festival of Wellbeing.
Head of Sustainability, Rob Delius imagines Bath in the year 2030 when our Wellbeing City Action Plan has been embraced and exciting transformations are happening across the entire city.
He also shares an exciting proposal for a signature wellbeing project which we are currently working on with Buro Happold and Icelandic architects, Basalt.
Postcards from
Bath 2030
Let’s get going!
Together, with enough collective will, we can turn this vision of Bath as a Wellbeing City into a reality.
We’ve focused our thinking around Bath. But many of our ideas could be transferable to other cities and we’re keen to explore that too.
Get in touch with Rob Delius if you’d like to discuss any of our ideas . Or if you’d like to share some of your own.
We are keen to progress this conversation with the Council, Bath BID and other key stakeholders. So let’s explore what needs to happen next to turn this into reality.