Bath Thermae Spa is finally back in business – despite being some £30M over budget, three years after the formal opening ceremony and some 10 years after work began.
Bath and North East Somerset Council secured £8M in Millennium Commission funding to begin the project in 1996, but the work has been complicated by a number of technical problems and legal disputes, which saw the original budget of almost £15M, escalate to a final bill of some £45M.
The city’s thermal springs – from which more than 1M litres of hot water flow every day – were closed in 1978 after a woman died of legionnaire’s disease, but the spa is now expected to attract more than 150,000 visitors a year to the world heritage site.