Conference – Sustainable Development X World Heritage

Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24th October 2024

The University of Bath, Bath & NE Somerset Council, and the Bath Preservation Trust present a sector-focused conference to explore innovative and practical approaches which demonstrate how urban conservation and protected landscapes may pioneer positive development, which is sustainable within
the Doughnut Economics model.

Bath is the perfect case-study of a city facing pressures on many levels. It is constrained by geography, increasingly affected by climate change, it needs more housing, better services and to balance the competing demands for growth and innovation while addressing disparate and variable social opportunity.

It is like every other city in the UK except the whole city is also a World Heritage Site, providing one of the most complex planning environments in the world. The need for conservation and responsibility for World Heritage is too often cited as a barrier to development, as it is in other protected landscapes. The reality is that homes are being built but the cost is unaffordable by most, those houses being built do not respond to local demand and design quality does not match the historic backdrop. The high costs are contributing to social disparity, with social mobility and opportunity compounded and confounded for many residents.

Sustainable development and the need for growth need practical reconciliation. But elsewhere in the world, many World Heritage cities are growing – carefully, sustainably but determinedly. This conference will explore how sustainable and appropriate development can take place in cities with equally complex planning rules and how learning from others can influence change in Bath and across the UK.

This two-day conference will explore Sustainable Development, Doughnut Economics and urban conservation and the World Heritage Convention. The event will consider issues, challenges, opportunities and practical methods to enable appropriate development in a conservation area on a sustainable basis.
The conference will bring together some of the leading architects and designers, developers and sector experts at a public forum in Bath to explore options.

Venue – The National Trust’s Bath Assembly Rooms

Timings – day 1 9.30am to 4.10pm; evening reception from 7pm; day 2 9.30am to 4.10pm

Click here for the full programme and to book tickets.