News

Exeter Central Station has been given grade II listed status following the application made by Devon Buildings Group earlier this year. The Group wishes to thank everyone who wrote to Historic England in support of their application.

Whilst Exeter Civic Society has not been involved in the development of the scheme to replace the A379 bridges across the canal, we have received feedback from the Friends of Exeter Ship Canal and Heritage Harbour (FESCHH) about what they believed was good progress for plans to create a greater air draft under replacement bridges. The recent consultation now says that is not being considered which is disappointing. We have sent a letter of concern to the County Council’s Transport Planning team which you can find in the side column, including an objection to using this government funding to undertake off-site cycling improvements. In our opinion, the County Council’s justifications for the choice of options fall well short. On 13 Aug we also published a press release to the local media.

Exeter Civic Society responded to both ECC Strategy consultations online and with a written letter, as the online form did not allow to comment on certain sections of both documents. The Cultural Strategy and the City Centre Strategy have been taken long to be made public, so we found the results a bit underwhelming. We think that both important strategies need improvement and hope that the council will make changes that reflect the responses they receive.

Online Consultation: is open now. Exeter Civic Society together with Citizen Architects and InExeter prepared an exhibition and ran two events on 10 and 13 June, both marked important steps in their campaign to improve North Street. The exhibition will become a travelling one; we will take this around the city for a few more weeks to further consolidate the public response. First stops: 20 June, The Mint Methodist Centre at ECS Saturday Open Meeting; 20-27 June, shop window 20 North Street; for details see below.

Devon Buildings Group has applied for listed status for Exeter Central Station. ECS is keen to support the application and wrote the email below in support to Historic England. After the old timber-framed station, known as Queen Street Station, burnt down in 1927, the new station was opened by the Mayor of Exeter on 1st July 1933 and renamed Central Station. It was in a grand, finely-detailed, neo-classical style, as was appropriate for the Georgian character of pre-war Exeter, but this was combined with elements of the ‘moderne’ or Art Deco style. Devon Building Group together and ECS both campaigned successfully for the re-installation of the cupola on the station's main building.

A group of 16 members assembled for a walking tour of the area around Lion's Holt on April 8th. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and any shade that we could find was welcome. The walk was billed as "in search of Exeter's lost streams and wells" and we looked at the likely course of the Longbrook, and at the sites of several of the wells which once provided Exeter with its main water supply. We also noted the mixed effects of the exceptionally high student population in the area.

Chris Pope, Pierluigi Chinellato and Gert Vonhoff sent in our response for the revised plans on 8 April. 2026 Given the Planning Committee’s January decision to defer this redevelopment on grounds of massing and street facing architectural impact, we were disappointed to find the changes limited. We welcomed the decision to lower the building facing Mary Arches Street by one storey, but the fact that the whole development then has only 5 units less than in the previous plans, means that the internal amenity spaces have been cut back in an unacceptable way (from 3 sqm to 1.96 sqm per person).

Chris Pope sent in our response for this site on Summerland Road on 19 March 2026. Following our pre-application criticism, we pointed out that though the site is well located for Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA), the justification for further PBSA is weak when set against the acute need for one-bed social rented housing. The tallness of the buildings risks making the street canyon like, especially where six storey blocks sit opposite each other.

Exeter Civic Society took part in the 'Exeter Plan' Examinations' meeting all day on Wed, 11 March. These meetings held by two inspectors have been ongoing since 3 March, continued this week and will resume in May. We were listed as participants for the sections about Affordable Housing, Co-Living, and Housing Density and Mix. The Exeter Plan will establish development policy in the city for the next two decades.. We have previously commented in the earlier stages of the plan.

At the well visited meeting about our present and future work we said we would upload our presentation on the website. The material now is available in 4 parts and can be visited in the members' section under 'AGM Minutes, Reports and Planning Ahead'. The document list provides a link to Chris Pope's research results for PBSA and Co-living in Exeter, as in Feb 2026.

Our new booklet in the 'Discovering Exeter' series, 'Discovering Exeter: Countess Wear, number 13' in the series, has now been published. This is an addition to the original series rather than a revision, and has been written by the Countess Wear Heritage Group. It describes the evolution of the village and parish that once lay between Exeter and Topsham from Roman settlements to the building of the Countess Wear and on through industrial and agricultural history into its twentieth-century absorption into Exeter city.

The redevelopment of Clarendon House was decided at ECC's Planning Committee meeting on 9 Feb 2026. In the end the unamended resolution received 6 votes in favour, 3 against and 1 abstention. Before that ECS had submitted a final objection statement on 4 Feb and Keith Lewis represented our Society as opposer at the meeting on 9 Feb. The vote was closer than this looks...