Willmott Dixon has won a £16.9m contract to build a new fire station in Bath to replace a 1938-built classical art deco building that some wanted to save.
Recently demolished, the old Bath Fire Station, clad in Bath stone, was considered a rare pre-second world war building designed by a female architect. The original station played a big role in protecting property and people during the Luftwaffe’s devastating blitz on the city in April 1942.
Architectural heritage charity the Twentieth Century Society led calls to save it. It noted that architect Alfred J. Taylor started designing the building in 1937, but died on Christmas Day in 1938.
His daughter, the architect Molly Taylor, took over the project and brought it to completion.
Historic England encouraged the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to give it a Grade II listing before its demolition, but heritage minister Baroness Twycross declined to do so in September last year.
“Whilst we acknowledge the unfortunate loss of an important landmark building that was constructed in the late 1930s to designs completed by the local architect Molly Taylor, there are evident public benefits of providing suitable up-to-date facilities for the fire service in the city,” Bath Preservation Trust commented.
‘Significant structural defects’
Avon Fire & Rescue Service, the client, said the old building had “significant structural defects throughout” and only five bays for the six vehicles based at Bath.
“The layout of the station also does not reflect modern practices and cannot be adapted in its current footprint to suit this,” it states on its website.
“This includes the safe management of fire contaminants which directly affect the health of our firefighters. The new layout will address these issues, making our fire station at Bath more efficient for response, more efficient in its energy usage and more effective in supporting our operations.”
The fire service sees the new station as necessary to meet its eight-minute response target, reduce running and maintenance costs and provide better facilities for firefighter safety, rest and wellbeing.
It will be clad in Bath stone.
Construction is scheduled to finish in summer 2027. The fire service is operating from a temporary station on the Lower Bristol Road.
Building Design Partnership (BDP) is the architect for the project; the M&E engineer is Method Consulting and Craddy Pitchers is the structural engineer.
