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It's a hot day and Bath's streets are packed with a share of the six million visitors who head to this historic city annually to enjoy its Georgian architecture and more.The sunshine provides the ideal backdrop to this most picturesque of cities – a designated World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The Roman Baths, one of the best-preserved Roman remains in the world, are a major draw.It is just one of the cultural sites owned and operated by Bath and North East Somerset Council's heritage services team. The council is expecting to generate a surplus of £13.23m in 2026-27 from its entrepreneurial management of the Roman Baths, Clore learning centre, Victoria art gallery, Bath records office, and the World Heritage Centre.Plans are also under way to deliver a new and internationally significant fashion museum in 2030, a £54m cultural regeneration project based in a transformed, historic old Post Office. The council also owns the elegant Pump Room restaurant next to the Roman Baths, featured as a setting in two of Jane Austen's novels.Sitting in this iconic restaurant with chief executive of Bath and North East Somerset Council Sophie Broadfield and cabinet member for economic and cultural sustainable development Cllr Paul Roper, all seems fairly rosy. The money generated from heritage services has enabled a cut of approximately £160 in annual council tax bills, helping it to keep the second-lowest council tax rate in the South West.But they highlight it is difficult to fund the upkeep of Bath as a tourist destination. The Government wants to give mayors in England the power to introduce an overnight visitor levy (OVL) or tourism tax. The council sees the OVL not as a panacea, but as a single solution to an overarching problem of how to hold onto as much tourist revenue as possible within the destination for the benefit of the people who live there.After a tour of the Roman Baths, and walking back to Bath's Guildhall, the scale of the council's commercial regeneration plans are becoming clear.These include the Milsom Quarter – with the new fashion museum as its anchor development. Other plans include a flagship commercial quarter around Bath Quays, at the centre of the Bath City Enterprise Zone.Broadfield and Roper say the city's popularity comes at a price. Many visitors are in the city for the briefest of times. That brings problems for a small unitary authority that is losing money under the recent fair funding review and cannot retain its business rates growth.Consultation on the OVL closed in February. Bath and North East Somerset Council says it will work alongside the West of England Combined Authority to look at how the levy could be introduced.It's high time for the approach, says Broadfield. ‘We've talked about having six million visitors a year, and they absolutely contribute to the economy of the city. But many of them come for a day and they have a big impact on the city. Particularly [by] creating rubbish, walking on paving slabs, wear and tear.'She adds: ‘Meanwhile council taxpayers, who are the main funders of the council, can be a bit resentful they are effectively funding services for people who are traipsing in and out of their city. So we've been calling for decades for the ability to raise money from tourists, and obviously every city in Europe does it. Then you can invest in your city.'She believes the tax would raise ‘maybe two to five million pounds a year, depending on what the tax was and how it was arranged'.With the cash, the council would look to invest in day-to-day services for visitors such as public toilets, waste collection, and tourism guides, and in replacing the public realm that needs to be upgraded.The council wants a discussion with government to build on the positive direction shown by the OVL, and is calling for a range of measures to include direct grants to fund vital infrastructure, specific marketing campaigns to drive more, high value visitors, VAT free shopping, and opportunities to raise more revenue such as business rates retention.But there is the question of if some of the OVL should be used to upgrade transport infrastructure across the wider area. Broadfield highlights there is no public transport, ‘other than a very slow bus' from Bristol airport to Bath.Cllr Roper says the Liberal Democrat controlled council wants the tax ‘ringfenced for certain things. We don't want it spent on buses'.Broadfield adds: ‘The mayor has ambitions to create a proper mass transit system, so rail, yes, and you could absolutely justify using a tourist tax for something like that. But that's our [political] position, as you say… that the money raised in Bath needs to be spent in Bath.'The council wants a discussion with government to build on the positive direction shown by the OVL, and is calling for a range of measures to include direct grants to fund vital infrastructure, specific marketing campaigns to drive more, high value visitors, VAT free shopping, and opportunities to raise more revenue such as business rates retention.Bath and North East Somerset Council is working with Oxford, Cambridge and York to bring together a case for that support, but says that if this does not materialise, the councils' ability to help underpin the UK tourism industry will be in jeopardy.Broadfield concludes: ‘We've painted a picture to you of us being very commercial, and I think we are, within the limits of the resources we have. But we could do so much more, and it would all benefit the economy and the UK.'

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REGENERATION

Tourism costs

By Ann McGauran | 12 August 2026

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