Keith Lewis expressed our views about how the Exeter Plan falls short of establishing a good policy for delivering affordable housing in the coming decades. He was able to add to wide-spread similar views expressed at the meeting that any reduction in affordable housing from brownfield sites will not provide homes for people in need on the housing register. Decisions in the last few years were referred to as vital evidence how affordable housing increasingly was pushed out of the re-development of the larger brownfield sites. The ‘Exeter Plan’ does not look to steer against this trend. We think the Plan must be more robust in ensuring there is adequate provision for affordable and social housing.
After a series of concerns whether Exeter really would be the place to add even more Co-Living to the housing mix, rather than building 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom flats for which there is a need, Katherine Leat was able to focus on living standards for C0-Living. Details on these standards had been promised by the council as a SPD (Supplementary Planning Document) during the Regulation 19 stage more than a year ago, but it seems the Council has back tracked on this. ECC representatives said at the hearing that they had not found the time yet. We hope that the inspectors will pick up on this in their report. The room seemed to have appetite for a C0-Living SPD or an equivalent to sharpen this section of the Exeter Plan.
Towards the end, Gert Vonhoff explained that we were in favour of the inspectors suggestion for a ‘Tall Buildings Policy’ as part of the Exeter Plan. He explained why we think the ‘Exeter Skyline Study’ is not covering this, as its scope is limited. Historic England’s ‘Advice Note 4: Tall Buildings’ together with their ‘Good Practice Advice Note 3’ explain factors which need to be considered when determining the impact a tall building can have upon its environment: Quality of places, visual and cumulative implications. These aspects are not properly covered by the emerging plan. We are pleased that ECC explained ‘local context’ as determining factor for ‘optimising density’ in Policy H15 further. As part of their suggested potential modifications this now clarifies: ‘Local context, including the natural, built and historic environment, including settings and views’.
The representative from St James Community Trust made clear why ‘mixed community’ is an unsatisfactory and inadequate category, as it lacks a robust definition for community balance. The term ‘balanced, diverse and sustainable community’ in relation to the housing mix to be planned for in any local area is the better category and should be used.
There was also a lively debate about whether and how to measure over-concentration of particular housing types such as student blocks and co-living. It was generally felt that the emerging ‘Exeter Plan’ does not provide guidance in this vital point, which is now resulting in a threat to vital infrastructure (schools and shops), due to the over-concentration of a transient population replacing local homes and people. Such a measure is available for HMOs, and whilst it was agreed that such measures for large student blocks are difficult, it was pointed out that for some recent planning applications a measure by radius has been used. We hope such a measure will make it into the amended plan.
The press was represented by ‘Exeter Observer’ only. We are looking forward to see how they will report on the Hearings.