Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder and I'm in a new location for me which is Bath Keys, Q-U-A-Y-S.

Yes, this is on the south bank of the River Avon as it gently flows past on its way to Bristol and to the sea.

And I'm here with Richard Pierce of T-C-N,

who is just putting the finishing touches to something called Newark Works.

Tell me what this is that we're looking at here.

Well, Newark Works is a beautiful set of buildings on the south side of the river,

which is originally a crane factory, Stotharden Pit,

who built cranes for particularly harbour size around the world.

So the building was built in 1850, and it ran through to about 1989 and then fell vacant and it's been vacants

for a long time so we picked it up at about 2015 started working with the council on Bath

Keys South and we had a vision which is what TCN does for a living which is to create workspace

for particularly for digital and tech

businesses. And it's really been a labour of love to bring us back to its former glory and

create workspace for up to about 50 businesses. So in total, that will be about 700 people across 50

businesses, all working independently, but also enjoying being part of a great

ecosystem okay now you got in touch with me because of course this is a podcast about travel

about tourism and what's this got to do with tourism we know what bath is all about it's the

roman baths it's the abbey it's Jane Austen. Why would people wonder to this,

if I may, a slightly unloved south-western corner of the city centre, rather than just enjoying bath,

buns and a cup of tea in the actual centre? Well, there's a lot of wonderful things about Bath and the Georgians did many wonderful things.

But it's all very much based around that traditional concept or idea of Bath, which is tourism and lovely tea shops, as you say.

What we tend to draw is a dynamic group of businesses who are drawn to somewhere with heritage and history and they work in a very dynamic way and a community work.

...