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Ahead of the ECC Planning Committee deciding on the redevelopment of the Mary Arches car parks our Society handed in a further written response to the latest set of documents provided by the developer and the officer's report. We do not think that the report dealt adequately with identified harm. Co-living does not meet local housing needs and in our view therefore cannot be used as an argument to outweigh the identified harms. We find the room-kitchen ratio problematic. We don't think the provision for re-purposing the buildings in case Co-living would not work is substantial enough. Staffing the building is much less than with other Co-living consents. And we obviously are not happy with reading nothing about any North Street Improvements, despite our initiative which we made public to ECC in October 2025. The committee meeting will be on Monday, 19 January, starting 17:30, Rennes Room, Civic Centre and we expect to speak in the role of Opposer.

This full planning application was considered by Exeter City Council’s Planning committee on Monday 8th December with a recommendation for approval. We are disappointed that the concerns about harm to neighbouring residents have been outweighed by other issues, like ECC’s shortfall on the approved housing supply. Our chair spoke in the opposer role, focussing on these issues and asking again why the officers did not seem tofollow ECC's own ‘Residential Design SPD’, which sets up a minimum of 22m between habitable windows to provide privacy and feeling at ease and comfortable at home. After an interesting and focussed meeting, the officer’s recommendation was in the end followed by 8 to 2 votes, including an amended S106 condition to access the permissible route through the site 24/7.

ECS handed in comments on the September additions and changes to the Mary Arches Redevelopment full planning application on 23 November. We said we did not consider that the proposed changes go far enough to justify a change to our previous objection to these proposals. We continue to object to the amended application because the applicant has not made adequate changes to the scheme to make it acceptable.

You will have heard about the shambles with the consultation about ECC disposing land for the Energy Plant in Grace Road Playing Fields and the adjacent areas. It got so bad that we followed up our response to the land disposal earlier this year by providing a slightly revised letter of concern with some objections to the disposal of this land. Especially we object to the additional area being included in the lease (green line) because it must remain as public open space, controlled by the city council (or an emerging local authority) as part of the Riverside Valley Park - its current status. Now that we have a bit more of a taster how damaging and disturbing the laying of the necessary pipework is, we do not want to see the historic path along the canal or operable playing fields be hampered with.

After a good debate within our society, Keith Lewis posted our response on 31 October 2025; Whilst the Society is supportive of measures to improve traffic flows across the city, and to improve pedestrian and cycling measures, it is important that those measures do not result in adverse traffic conditions that may add to congestion. Our concern with these proposals are that the only exit for traffic from the Southernhay area will be via the junction with Magdalen Road – a route that is already congested at peak afternoon travel times.

After many months, Exeter Central Station has been restored to its original appearance with a lookalike cupola made from modern materials. A couple of years ago Network Rail discovered that the wooden frame of the old cupola was rotten, and took it down to ensure that it didn’t collapse onto anyone, which gave the building an unfinished look. Now a replica has been manufactured and has been lifted into place last week. Our chair Keith Lewis had been in communication with Network Rail over the replacement for a long time.

Exeter Civic Society handed in its response to the full planning application for the Clarendon House Site. While we are broadly supportive of the principle of redeveloping this site, as identified within the emerging Exeter Plan, we are disappointed that family accommodation cannot be developed in this sustainable location, and we continue to have significant reservations regarding the current proposal as student accommodation. The proposed scheme does not demonstrate an appropriate or sensitive response to the surrounding built environment, particularly in relation to scale, massing, and its relationship with adjacent buildings, streetscapes, and public spaces. Given the strategic importance of this site, a more rigorous contextual approach is required to ensure that the development contributes positively to the townscape character and respects the established urban form.

On 29 Sep Exeter Civic Society handed in its response to the Full Re-Application for the site of the Former Police Station and Magistrate Courts. You will remember that the previous application was refused by the council and this was upheld in legal proceedings. The developer came up with new layouts and ideas and we commented on them after a pre-application exhibition and consultation earlier this year. We see the current proposals as improvement, but think further amendments and more information is required before we can remove our objections. We understand concerns of local residents who still think scale and massing remains out of character with the surrounding area, and given how much emphasis the Planning Inspector laid on this in his rejection of the previous scheme, we think these concerns have to be taken seriously (for more details see below). The number of units is enlarged again, from 762 in the pre-application to 813 (compared to the 905 units in the rejected application).

Exeter Civic Society sent its response to the redevelopment plans to Spinnaker Estates. The plan is for more student accommodation in this area. On our doubts raised at the drop-in event on 10 September, the representative said that their studios focus on a slightly different market segment and that this would further help to free up HMOs in residential areas to be re-converted into family homes. We made clear that we do not 'buy' this, given that the University is now starting their building of West Park with more than 1,000 student places on campus. So far we have not seen much impact on the residential areas from all these new student blocks. Our written concerns dealt with the proposals in much more detail.

Exeter Civic Society's walk on 10 Sep 2025 led us all around Bull Meadow Park in St. Leonard's. We invited local residents alongside our own members to spend an afternoon with Ed Dolphin from the Sidmouth Arboretum Trust to explore the tree life in this old Exeter park. We had approximately 20 on an interesting walk, despite some rain. Stephen Mariner briefly spoke about the history of the site, before Ed Dolphin and David Solman, Lead of ECS' Tree Preservation Taskforce guided us from tree to tree with lots of information. More than one local resident said this was a very entertaining way of spending a couple of hours. We concluded our walk with a well-earned cup of tea and a biscuit in the Old St. Leonard's Hall, which its owner Katherine Leat kindly had opened for us. If you are interested in joining us for future walks, keep looking on the events part of our website where our monthly walks are advertised.

On 26 Aug 2025 Exeter Civic Society was able to welcome about 20 participants to its 1st workshop on North Street Improvements, Local businesses and private residents took part in similar numbers, 2 guests from InExeter (whose CEO Nicola Wheeler is helping with reaching out to the local business community), 2 local councillors and 4 members of the society helped to produce interesting outcomes. After an introduction by Keith Lewis (Chair of Exeter Civic Society) and Gert Vonhoff (project lead) the attendees had a good discussion at two tables to be followed by bringing together the results and the participants filling in feedback questionnaires.

We submitted our objection to the Mary Arches Car-park planning application where we have objected to the overbearing and inappropriate massing, superficial elevational treatment lacking contextual response, and the poor articulation of the corner site and public frontage at the junction of North Street and Bartholomew Street East. We are questioning the need for more co-living accommodation in the city and asking for a better housing mix and social inclusivity strategy.