CITY PAGES

A:ROAM:A has received rave reviews and built up a loyal following since starting up at the beginning of February. Local chefs Jesse Davies and Ross Shaw have collaborated to showcase their passion for food, travel and flavour, channelling their expertise to create a weekly changing feast. Each week they cook delicious, healthy, balanced and exceptionally tasty dishes inspired by flavours, spices and ingredients from different countries around the world. They aim to use the freshest ingredients, working closely with the best local suppliers. Everything is made on the day including their freshly roasted, ground spice blends and pastes to ensure maximum taste.

There’s always a choice between a meat and a vegan meal, all served in compostable containers which can be put straight in the oven or microwave. No fuss, no mess, and the only preparation is to pre-heat the oven and follow the simple instructions provided. There’s free delivery to the Bath city area, BA1 and BA2 postcodes and Box. Place your order on the website before 10pm the previous day and then the meals are delivered on Fridays and Saturdays, between 5–7pm. aroama.co.uk; hello@aroama.co.uk

Pippa’s Guardians, who provide guardianship services to overseas pupils studying at boarding schools across the country, are asking families in Bath to welcome international students into their homes.

When their school closes for half-term holidays and certain weekends, these students need a host family who will provide a home. Families who have participated say it has been a rewarding and enjoyable experience, as well as an opportunity to really make a difference to a student studying in the UK.

Carolyn Cole Rodrigues de Souza has been hosting international students since 2019. “Being a host is like extending your family. We loved having our student, learning about her culture and sharing ours. My daughters loved having an ‘older sister’ around,” she says.

Ben Hughes, managing director of Pippa’s Guardians, says: “The families we look for are welcoming and are interested in other cultures. Having children of similar ages helps but we also have many successful host families who have no children, younger children or indeed older children who have left home.

“Internet access is important, and each student will need their own bedroom with a desk or somewhere quiet for homework. Being part of a family and experiencing day-to-day family life enhances students’ study and plays a part in improving their English language.” Anyone interested in hosting a student from a school in Bath should contact hostfamilies@pippasguardians.co.uk

Criterion Auctioneers have expanded their business to hold monthly online auctions from their headquarters in Corsham. The auctions, which are specifically aimed at the luxury and antiquities markets, have confirmed dates in June and July, with a luxury handbags and accessories auction soon to be announced.

runs until 9 June. Carpets and Rugs auction: 10–30 June; Jewellery Auction: 1–21 July. Criterion Auctioneers, Jaggards house, Jaggards Lane, Corhsam SN13 9SF; 0207 359 5707; bath@criterionauctioneers.com

Following the piece in the May Bath Magazine on Cleveland Bridge and the strengthening works taking place, there has been much local debate. As a result, structural engineer Dave Andrews, the chair of Bath Trams Association, has come up with two new petitions. The first is to build a simple, lowcost, slow bypass (not the usual high speed and obtrusive multi-lane type) to connect trucks and cars from the M4 and Chippenham directly to the A36, rather than the present route through Bath, which creates massive pollution and is weakening the structure of Cleveland Bridge. The second is to bring back modern trams to Bath to cut congestion and regenerate the city. Find out more by reading the proposals –at you.38degrees.org.uk and search on ‘bring back modern trams’ and ‘removing trucks and cars from Cleveland Bridge’.

ACCOUNTANCY

141 Englishcombe Lane, Bath BA2 2EL Tel: 01225 445507 www.oclaccountancy.com

As all readers of this article are aware the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on those businesses that operate in the hospitality and leisure sector. Landlords offering furnished holiday lettings (FHL) accommodation have been hit particularly hard.

Landlords were still legally obliged to ensure that properties met required health and safety standards even though they received virtually no income.

The pandemic also meant that several businesses were unable to meet the occupancy condition.

Broadly, in order for a property to qualify as a holiday let it must be available for letting on a commercial basis to the general public for at least 210 days in a tax year and actually let to the general public for 105 or more in a tax year. Letting periods of more than 31 days are not counted unless the let period has occurred as a result of unforeseen circumstances.

Where the 105 day occupation condition has not been met in 2020/21 all is not lost. This is because FHL businesses can make use of two possible elections; a period of grace election or an averaging election.

The first can be used where the landlord genuinely intended to meet the occupancy condition but was unable to do so; it offers landlords a potential lifeline. The availability condition must have been met in the year of claim and the FHL conditions must have been met fully in the previous income tax year. The election can also be reviewed for a second year.

The averaging election can be used where a landlord has more than one holiday let and one or more of the properties doesn’t meet the letting condition. Here an election can be made to average the rate of occupancy across all FHLs.

Time limit for making elections – these must be submitted to HMRC on or before the first anniversary of the normal selfassessment filing date for the year. i.e. an election for the 2020/21 tax year must be made by the 31st January 2023. .

Call Marie Sheldrake, Tom Hulett or Mike Wilcox on 01225 445507 to arrange a no-obligation meeting

Pensions are often the most valuable asset to be considered on divorce. Specialising in financial resolution for divorcing couples Rebecca Silcock, explores the pension options available to separating couples.

If you have been married for a short period of time or are at the beginning of your career and have not accrued much of a pension, the court might decide to make no order in respect of your pensions. Where a pension order is needed there are three specific orders that the court may make.

The most common type of order is a pension sharing order. This order allows a proportion of one spouse’s pension to be taken from their pension pot and invested into a separate pension pot in the name of the other spouse.

It may be that the most appropriate arrangement is for one spouse to keep their entire pension and for the other to receive a lump sum or equity in the marital home in return. The option of offsetting should be approached with caution and proper advice taken to ensure you correctly calculate an offsetting figure.

Pension attachment orders provide that once a pension goes into payment, a set amount will be paid directly to the other spouse.

The drawback of this order is that the pension capital remains invested in your spouse’s pension, so you have no control over its investment or draw down and they end on re-marriage or death, so there is a risk you may never benefit from this order if your spouse remarries or passes away.

Before deciding on a pension order, it is common for the court to seek the advice of a pensions on divorce expert who can provide advice and carry out the calculations necessary to ensure equality of income in retirement if that is your goal.

Our team of family law specialists work alongside Chartered Financial Planner Daniel Gornall, who specialises in providing Independent Financial Advice to those going through divorce or separation. Daniel regularly provides detailed reports to assist the court on how issues relating to pensions should be resolved in a sensible and fair manner.

For more information on divorce and the affect it could have on your pension please get in touch with Rebecca Silcock today at Rebecca.silcock@mogersdrewett.com or call 01225 750000.

Bath’s biggest company is one you may not have heard of before. Founded over 60 years ago, Rotork is a global company listed on the FTSE-250, headquartered in Bath and actively supporting the local community. Emma Clegg talks to CEO Kevin Hostetler

Who knows a thing or two about valves? Let me introduce Kevin Hostetler. Before I do, don’t turn the page in search of something less valve-y, because we just couldn’t manage without valves and actuation (more of this later). These things make a big difference to our lives –controlling the flow of liquids and gases like water and oil –but we just take them for granted. That proves that somebody’s doing them really well then? Why yes, and that’s Rotork, a Bath-based company with the defined purpose of “keeping the world flowing for future generations”, who are part of the Bath Unlimited collective of world-class businesses right on our doorstep.

You know when you are at a gathering and you meet someone and ask what they do? And they give you a job title that sets your head all in a spin? I suggested to Kevin Hostetler –who relocated to Bath from Chicago three years ago –that this might be a challenge for him, as the CEO of Rotork, the global provider of mission-critical flow control and instrumentation solutions for the industrial actuation and flow control markets.

He shared his approach: “There are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about what actuation actually does. The first thing I say is that I work for a world-class traditional engineering company. That’s a good starting point because they are well known. Then I explain that products help the control of fluids and gases. And I ask them to think of any fluid and gas. And to imagine that at some point gas moves through pipelines. And somewhere along those pipelines there are valves used to control the flows of those. And then I say that Rotork is all about the brains and the muscle that sits on top of the valve. We are the ones that open, close and modulate those valves at any point in the process.”

The valves and pipes that Rotork deal with range in size from very small to enormous. “We operate in many different industries and with so many pipes. If you think about those pipes, there are products that we are actuating that you could stack three men on top of vertically inside that water intake valve, in Shanghai, for example. Or we might be dealing with 1⁄4 inch diameter pipelines.”

Having started this with valves, I should clarify that Rotork don’t make valves, they specialise in the actuators that control the valves. “The biggest misconception that people have is that Rotork is a valve company,” Kevin explains. “To differentiate we try to be clear that we don’t make valves. We are the world-leading provider of actuators that stand on top of valves and make them work. That’s a big distinction.”

Rotork might have its HQ in Bath, but it’s an impressive multi-national company. “We have 3500 staff in total, 450 in Bath and around 850 in the UK. We are active in 173 countries and our brand is really widely recognised globally, particularly in the markets we participate in.”

What are typical Rotork projects? “The majority of our sales are engineered solutions. So there is a high degree of innovation and customisation for our customers. If you were to sit in our Bath assembly lines, for example, you would see 200 of the same product going down the assembly line, five in one permutation, followed by seven in another, then one, and three, and so on, all highly customised for the individual application.”

Bespoke challenges are another area. “We have a separate research and innovation team who integrate emerging technology into our products to solve customers’ challenges. For example how to integrate solar power as the main power supply to power valves on a remote pipeline. So it’s taking other pieces of technology and integrating them into a product set to solve customer problems.”

Another significant part of Rotork’s revenue is providing upgrades and retrofits. “Our customers are looking for a higher degree of efficiency to operate what were previously manual valves. Companies trying to automate and to control remotely with greater operating efficiency drive 70% of our revenues. We may work on a site with 300 valves for three years, gradually automating that site. Other sites might just have five valves that need upgrading and we will do that very quickly. It is no longer efficient to manually open a valve and then call back in and tell someone at a control centre it’s open or closed.”

Another typical project is where a new facility is being built, such as a water treatment facility. “Here we will work with a valve company and we will fully engineer their solution and actuation of the entire site. There is one large refinery where work has been taking place over 15 years.”

The company operates in 173 countries and Kevin explains why: “One of the strongest elements of our business is the service business. And we have technicians within three hours of any installation of a Rotork product. If you can’t control your process you are losing lots of money per hour so they need

An example of the work of the Pump Aid charity supported by Rotork

This on site photo includes the GP, a pneumatic scotch yoke actuator and instrumentation products

When I’m asked what I do, the first thing I say is that I work for a world-class traditional engineering company. Then I explain that products help the control of fluids and gases, and I ask them to think of any liquid or gas. And to imagine that at some point gas moves through pipelines. And somewhere along those pipelines there are valves used to control the flows of those. And then I say that Rotork is all about the brains and the muscle that sit on top of the valve. ❝

to know that we can get there quickly. That’s why we operate in so many countries.”

The changes in technology since Rotork set up in Bath in 1957 have been dramatic. “Rotork started over 60 years ago as a largely electric actuated company, which means you took a mechanical piece of equipment and you put an electric motor on it. What has changed over the years is that now you are talking about a very sophisticated piece of digital equipment; the mechanical parts of it probably haven’t changed a whole lot. But now you are talking about communications for power supplies, LCD displays and data recorders. You’d hire an automobile mechanic to do that kind of work 20–30 years ago. Today those technicians are electrical software engineers –so that profile has dramatically changed.”

“If you are in a water treatment facility the likelihood is that you are using our network and using all our actuators on the entire spike so that you can open and close all those valves from your control room. And you are doing it as you receive direct feedback of what is coming into the system. So you are proactively managing the process.

“One of the most exciting changes in our products is all about preventative maintenance. So we’ve had digital recorders in our products since the mid-nineties and so every time that valve is open and closed, we’re recording all the data about how much force did it take, how much time did it take, all the time mapping that data. And now this can be done through the Cloud, uploading all their data, we can analyse it and predict exactly when a valve is about to fail. That is just a whole new generation of technology.”

Environmental efficiency is another big factor: “What is increasingly important is our ability to help our customers increase their environmental efficiency in their use of oil, gas and water. So our solutions give our customers a more energy-efficient solution and one that reduces their emissions. Electrical actuation is one of those key technologies that really help them do that.

The engineering experts at Rotork also have a mission to improve people’s lives all around the world, supporting global charities whose work aligns with their industry. “We love to have a tangible impact on the lives of people. Pump Aid is a great example –there are over 1,600 people now who didn’t have access to clean and safe water and sanitation two years ago.” Pump Aid aims to achieve lasting positive change in poor and rural communities by improving the quality, availability and use of water, with simple but effective pumps providing access to safe water, child-friendly toilets and handwashing stations. Kevin is also proud of the company’s direct engagement with the community – over the last year they have been printing facemasks. “Every site of Rotork around the world was coming together and supporting the Covid effort with food and time. I’ve told our Board that I’m immensely proud to be Rotork’s CEO.”

The company has introduced wellbeing initiatives such as desktop pilates, meditation and Zoomba as their staff worked from home, and it’s clear that their people matter. “These are all things to keep people better engaged through this pandemic and through our new virtual world,” says Kevin.

Rotork offer an apprentice programme, and Kevin explains that one of the benefits of being around Bath in that there is a strong engineering pedigree in the local universities.

Kevin says that Bath Unlimited has certainly showcased some of the better companies in the south west: “We’re proud to have been included. It does help put us back in the map in terms of business and potential employees.”

Now that you are all experts in actuation, there is no need for me to point out that even though they are hidden, Rotork products are everywhere, wherever fluid or gases are being transported in your home. “We like that, we like being a critical element,” says Kevin. n

Rotork’s company values: • Stronger Together • Always Innovating • Trusted Partner

Bath-based Truespeed has officially started rolling out its ultrafast, gigabit-capable full fibre broadband network in Bath, propelling the World Heritage city into the gigabit era. The local, multi-award winning business is also expanding its footprint into neighbouring areas in Somerset, including Keynsham and Saltford in its bid to bring the South West into the digital fast lane.

Truespeed are on a mission to bring left-behind towns, cities and rural communities across the South-West the benefits of affordable, full fibre broadband direct to their doors. Bath’s rich culture and historic significance means the city has been stymied with poor unreliable broadband for years. Subsequently leaving its businesses and residents in the digital slow lane. Undeterred by the momentous challenge, Truespeed are using an array of innovative deployment technicinwues in order to help people across the city. Ushering in a new era of connectivity, Bath will at long last have its digital playing field levelled once and for all.

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath said, “Truespeed’s investment will benefit the city enormously as ultrafast broadband connectivity can’t come soon enough for Bath businesses and residents. It’s great that a Bath-based firm is at the forefront of supporting our communities and taking our beautiful city into the full fibre fast lane.”

Bath is home to a multitude of progressive and world leading businesses. Providing an ultrafast platform that allows home workers and businesses to tap into some of the fastest broadband speeds in the world. By building a brand new infrastructure, Truespeed deliver 10 gigabit-capable full fibre broadband directly into premises. Guaranteeing lightning quick connectivity and cast-iron reliability, even at peak times. With truly flexible and productive working, Truespeed are helping propel Bath forward as a thriving business hub. Evan Wienburg, CEO of Truespeed, commented, “We’re excited to get going in Bath while stepping up the roll-out of our full fibre network in Wells and surrounding areas in Somerset. We’re lighting up our map of the South-West and bringing under-served households and businesses the future-proofed gigabit capable connectivity they deserve.”

True to its community-first ethos, Truespeed also offers primary schools and community hubs passed by its network free ultrafast broadband for life. To date, over 100 schools and community hubs have signed up for free broadband.