Fragrance Group Limited
Fragrance UK – Bath Ltd (part of Fragrance Group Ltd) was founded by Koh Wee Meng, of Singapore. Fragrance develop and own hotels throughout Singapore and Australia and entered the UK hotel market in early 2017, purchasing around 1 0 existing hotels to develop or extend in the past 24 months. The core business activities of our Group include the development of residential, commercial, hotel, and industrial properties which provide comfortable space to our residents, tenants and guests.
The Fragrance Group has a track record of sensitively restoring and rejuvenating listed buildings and bringing them back into positive use. The Fragrance Group recently secured listed building consent and planning permission for a new 185 bed luxury four-star hotel at the former office of Liverpool City Council. This Grade II* listed former Municipal Buildings is on Dale Street, in Liverpool’s Castle Street Conservation Area and World Heritage Site.
About the site
The Royal Mineral Water Hospital is located in the centre of the city of Bath, bounded to the north by Upper Borough Walls, to the east by Union Street, and to the west by Bridewell Lane. The site is effectively split by Parsonage lane with a bridge connecting the two main buildings – the East and West Wings.
The former Royal Mineral Water Hospital building, then known as Bath’s General Hospital, was designed by John Wood, the elder, and dates back to the mid 18th Century. Since its inception a number of internal and external amendments have been made and, following damage from a bomb during the Blitz in 1942, in 1962, part of the West Wing was re-built, and a number of internal changes were undertaken.
Fragrance acquired the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (the Royal Mineral Water Hospital) in mid-2017 following its disposal by the NHS, when the Royal United Hospital chose to centralise at a more modern facility at its centralised hospital in Weston, Bath.
Following our acquisition of the site, we sought to engage positively with officers, statutory consultees, stakeholders, and residents prior to submitting an application to B&NES Council in November 2019. The submitted application sought to rejuvenate the site, bringing it back into positive use as a high-end lifestyle hotel with spa facilities, a restaurant, and meeting space through internal amendments to the Grade II* listed building and a sensitively designed extension. Following a lengthy debate members narrowly voted to refuse the application, despite officers at B&NES Council recommending the application for approval.
Project Team
Architect
Aaron Evans
GHLCL
Global Hotels & Leisure Consultancy
Heritage Consultant
Ashley Davies Architect
Civil & Structural Engineer
Integral Engineering Design
Mechanical & Electrical Engineer
Hoare Lea
Architect
Greenhalgh Architect
Traffic & Transport Engineer
Peter Evans Partnership
Archaeologist
Cotswold Archaeology
Arboriculturist
JP Associates
Ecologist
SLR
Community Engagement
MPC
Planning Consultant
Planning Sphere
