Bath City Council/Bath & North East Somerset Council. Records relating to applications...

Under the Local Government Act of 1858, local authorities were permitted to make bye-laws regulating the construction of buildings, to ensure that they were soundly built and had proper drainage. Bath City Council passed its first building regulation bye-laws in 1866, regulating the distance between houses. More significant bye-laws passed in 1868 dealt with drainage, privies, opening windows, thickness of walls, and other matters. They also required that plans were deposited with the Council, and from 1869 anyone in Bath wishing to build or make substantial alterations to a building had to submit plans. Almost all of these plans have survived, and form an impressive record of building and alterations in the city from the late 1860s to the present day.

The plans mostly relate to properties within the boundaries of the city of Bath and its successor bodies as they were constituted at the time the plans were submitted. The main boundary changes, as they affect the building plans, are as follows:
Late 1860s-1911: Bath City included the city centre, Walcot parish (to the north and west of the centre), and Lyncombe and Widcombe. Plans for this area only are included for this period.
1911 The city boundaries were extended to include Twerton, Lower Weston and part of Charlcombe. Plans for these areas are included from this date.
1951 The boundaries were extended to include Upper Weston and parts of Charlcombe, Claverton, Englishcombe, Monkton Combe and Southstoke. Plans for these areas are included from this date. In addition, plans for the areas dating back to the 1920s seem to have been transferred to the city at this point, and are therefore also included in the collection. It is not, however, clear whether all relevant plans were transferred.
1967 The boundaries were extended to include Charlcombe, parts of Swainswick and Batheaston, and Monkton Combe. Plans for these areas are included from this date; in addition, some plans for the areas dating from the 1920s may have been transferred to the city at the time of the boundary extension, and may now form part of the collection, although further work is required to verify this.
1974 Bath City became part of the newly-created Avon County, but retained responsibility for building regulations, and the series of plans is therefore unbroken.
1996 Avon County was abolished, and Bath and North East Somerset was created, comprising Bath and a number of the surrounding villages to the west and south. Plans for the whole of the B&NES area are included from this date.

Arrangement
The numbering and referencing system for the plans changed over time, and the plans have now been arranged in seven series to reflect these different systems:
Series 1: the earliest plans, covering approximately 1869 to 1900. These plans were kept flat, in folders marked A-G, although individual plans were not numbered. These plans have been removed from their folders and are now stored flat in plan chests.
Series 2: a set of plans numbered from 1 to 1968, which run from the 1890s to about 1910.
Series 3: a set of plans numbered 1-16260, covering the years 1903 to 1965.
Series 4: a set of plans numbered R1-R7831, running from 1966 to 1974.
Series 5: In 1975 a system of numbering was adopted which is still in use today. The plan number starts with the last two digits of the year, followed by a running number, for example 75-0123.
Series 6: comprises plans numbered E1 onwards - these are plans for large-scale projects, such as large housing estates and commercial properties. They include plans from about 1900 to date. The earlier plans seem to have been extracted from their original series and placed in the 'E' series.
Series 7: plans transferred from the former Bathavon Rural District Council; they cover the areas which were brought into the city of Bath after the boundary alterations of 1951, and that of 1967. They appear to cover the period from 1906-1966, but have not yet been catalogued in detail.

Finding Aids
A card-index to the early plans is available in the Record Office searchroom. A staff-use only database and a hard-copy index, each covering different dates, enable Record Office staff to locate later plans for users. No online database is available at the moment.

Access conditions
At the request of B&NES Building Control Department, and to comply with UK Data Protection Law, access to some plans is restricted, as follows:
Access to plans more than 30 years old is unrestricted. Access to plans less than 30 years old is restricted to the owner of the property or their authorised agent.
Access to papers accompanying the plans, where these are more than 80 years old, is unrestricted. Access to papers accompanying the plans, where these are less than 80 years old, is restricted to B&NES Building Control Department.
Plans under 40 years old are only accessible through the Building Control Department and are stored with the Records Management team.

Copying
Photocopying or photography of building control plans is permitted where this does not damage the plans or infringe copyright. Copyright in many plans does not expire until 70 years after the death of the person who drew them up. However, where copyright still subsists, a small amount of copying may be allowed for personal research.