Bath and North East Somerset (commonly referred to as BANES or B&NES) is a unitary authority that was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the County of Avon. It is part of the Ceremonial county of Somerset. It provides a single tier of local government with responsibility for almost all local government functions within its area including local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection, recycling, cemeteries, crematoria, leisure services, parks, and tourism. It is also responsible for education, social services, libraries, main roads, public transport, trading standards, waste disposal and strategic planning, although fire, police and ambulance services are provided jointly with other authorities through the Avon Fire and Rescue Service, Avon and Somerset Constabulary and the Great Western Ambulance Service. Its administrative headquarters is in Bath.
Bath and North East Somerset covers an area of 220 square miles (570 km2), of which two thirds is green belt. It stretches from the outskirts of Bristol, south into the Mendip Hills and east to the southern Cotswold Hills and Wiltshire border. The city of Bath is the principal settlement in the district, but BANES also covers Keynsham, Midsomer Norton, Radstock, Westfield and the Chew Valley.
The area has varied geography including river valleys and rolling hills. The history of human habitation is long but expanded massively during Roman times, and played significant roles in the Saxon era and English civil war. Industry developed from a largely agricultural basis to include coal mining with the coming of canals and railways. Bath developed as a spa resort in Georgian times and remains a major cultural tourism centre having gained World Heritage City status.
Read more about Bath And North East Somerset: History, Geography, Governance, Demography, Economy, Settlements, Transport, Education, Sports, Places of Interest
Famous quotes containing the words bath and, bath, north, east and/or somerset:
“A bath and a tenderloin steak. Those are the high points of a man’s life.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“A bath and a tenderloin steak. Those are the high points of a man’s life.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Lady Hodmarsh and the duchess immediately assumed the clinging affability that persons of rank assume with their inferiors in order to show them that they are not in the least conscious of any difference in station between them.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)