Friday, June 27th, 2025
Court Delays Slammed | Alice Park Playground Upgrade | Stolen Statues Investigated
👩🏻🦳 🧑🏻🦰 👩🏼🦰 👨🏽🦳 🧑🏻🦳 👴🏽 👨🏼 👨🏾🦱 👵🏼 🧑🏿🦱 👩🏻🦱 👩🏼🦰 🧑🏻🦰 👦🏽 👩🏼🦰 👱🏼♂️ 🧓🏽 👩🏽
It’s been a quieter news week. So before you delve in, can you take a few seconds to help? Is what we’re doing useful?
⚖️ Bath Magistrate’s Court - like many courts across the nation - is experiencing major backlogs - and one local solicitor is pretty annoyed after his client’s January trial was delayed twice and is now scheduled for December, reports the Bath Echo.
♾️ A review into the 2019 death of an autistic woman who choked to death after her care plan was ignored at Somerset Court, near Highbridge, has been published, reports the BBC.
🏥 Somerset Court, opened in 1974 and regarded as the first residential campus for autistic adults in the world and certainly in the UK, is closing its doors, writes the same BBC reporter.
🏘️ Eight new energy efficient council apartments are ready to rent at the old Argyle Works on the Lower Bristol Road, reports the Bath Echo. Social housing represents 14% of the housing stock in BANES, lower than the national average of 17%.
🛝 Alice Park’s playground is getting a major makeover, with a roundabout, pick up sticks and rope trail swings, after it secured £125,000 in funding, reports the Bath & Wiltshire Parent.
🌳 Victoria Park ranked 8th nationally in terms of beauty and popularity, says Somerset Live, in a survey done by a private shopping comparison app (conveniently hyper-linked throughout the piece).
🌊 The Wave near Bristol is set to close over a finance dispute, reports the BBC.
Weather
⛱️ Lovely weekend forecast.
📚 The Bath Book Fair is on at the Pavilion featuring second-hand and antiquarian book sellers today, Friday, 27 June from 12 - 6p.m. and Saturday 10 - 4p.m. It’s free if you print this advance ticket, or £2 at the door.
🥏 Check out this free ultimate frisbee beginner’s meet-up in Vicky Park, Saturday, June 28 from 4p.m.
🎨 Celebrate 15 years of Funky Art House on Sunday 29th June, 1–4 PM at Bath Artists Studios with an exhibition, suggested donation £3-5 per adult (kids free!). It’s to raise funds for art class places for pupils who may not be able to afford it. You can also donate here.
📵 Enjoy a phone-free, in-person hangout at Sydney Gardens this Sunday morning, 9-11 a.m., with the Digital Detox Club.
🌔 Last chance to join the Dorothy House Hospice Walk on Saturday, July 5th, when you can don your PJs and join other nocturnal Bathonians for a 5 or 10k sponsored charity walk. The Bath and Wiltshire Parent has all the details.
📌 Bath Bee Community Noticeboard
📌 Enter this competition to win a Regency wedding or vow renewal in Parade Gardens in September as part of Jane Austen’s 250th birth anniversary.
📌 Don't forget the Roman Baths are open late into the evening from July 21 to Aug 31.
City
👮🏽♀️ Work to locate all of Bath’s police force under one roof begins this summer, reports the Bath Echo.
🍔 McDonald’s in Weston Lock has withdrawn an application to extend its restaurant in the Grade II-listed Avon House, reports the Bath Echo.
🏵️ Here’s a fitting interview with Bath’s first Indian-origin mayor, Bharat Pankhania, done by Bath Newseum - including a fascinating, personal sit-down TV interview you can watch.
🎹 Half of Bath is probably at Glastonbury this weekend! There’s plenty of coverage, so we’ll just highlight this brilliant profile from the BBC of 80-year-old Sir Rod Stewart, playing the Legends slot - including the icon’s unlikely start in music and why he was banned from US hotel chain Holiday Inn.
🦋 If you’re at Glastonbury - look out for this sculpture that young people in Bath helped create.
Transport
🧰 We’ve bought at least six bikes over the years from the Julian House Bike Workshop on Corn Street in Bath. The charity trains people experiencing homelessness to refurbish donated bikes. But it’s closing in October. We first spotted the news a few weeks ago. Now the BBC reports that the rise in National Insurance is the reason it’s shutting. 🎧Hear this BBC Bristol audio story.
📊 3,300 randomly selected local residents will be able to share their views on the condition of roads, footpaths and cycling facilities, reports the Bath Echo. The council-run survey, running for its 18th year, will be sent out in June.
🚁 A Frome-based company is making Pentagon-funded unmanned helicopters for potential use by the US and UK militaries, reports the BBC.
Crime
🛍️ Central Bath and Lansdown have the highest rates of shoplifting in the Southwest, with 922 offences recorded by police last year, reports Somerset Live.
🚨Meanwhile, two prolific Bath shoplifters have been convicted, reports the Somerset Leveller.
🚓 Police are appealing for witnesses after several patrol cars were damaged, reports the Bath Echo.
🥷🏻 Who stole three of Iford Manor’s bronze statues late at night? Police are investigating.
Sweet stuff 🍯
🎬 Legendary director Danny Boyle has a personal message for Somerset, as told to the BBC. You can meet the zombies of Cheddar Gorge in his new film 28 Days Later.
📖 Read about some of Bath’s rarest, most beautiful books, which survived the Blitz, including editions printed on vellum, beautifully illustrated antique children’s books and the Elizabethan Charter of the City of Bath from 1590, in this piece from Bath Voice. Or go see them in person today and tomorrow at Bath Record Office.
🐛 Didn’t make it to Twerton’s first flower Show in a century? Read all about it courtesy of the Bath Echo.
🪴 Meet the Bath family with a love of pottery and a kiln in their under-street vault, as featured in Nearfield magazine.
🌸 Click Bath Bid’s post below to watch how the Jane Austen Book in Parade Gardens took shape!
🎩 Top posts from last week’s Bee:
🎙️ Rod Stewart's plan to party in Bath.
🏉 Mendip ward Reform candidate who was dismissed from police force after Sports Direct altercation