In the morning, our president Dr Julia Neville spoke about Saint Sidwell, the history of the area and how the revised and updated booklet in our series compares to the first edition. Her talk was interluded by a short presentation about the geology of the area and the ‘Lost Rivers of St. Sidwell’, presented by our guest speaker John Davidson. You can secure your copy of the booklet for £5 on our website.
The afternoon saw a planning ahead session where we recorded voices from local businesses, residents, councillors and users of the area about how they see the future of the part of the city between the bus station, the Civic Centre, Paris Street and Sidwell Street. The work took place at four tables with discussing a list of prompts we provided. Our interest was focussed on a holistic view of the area, with special emphasis on the areas between different developments and future redevelopment sites. Results were presented to the full audience and are currently being written up to feed into a paper which Exeter Civic Society wants to present to all Exeter councillors and the ECC Executive Committee before they meet in November to discuss their plans for the area. We want to see how much our community-led vision for the area can feed into what ECC is going to do, the idea is to open up a pro-active debate rather than only responding to a consultation at a later stage. There was definitely enough appetite among those assembled last Saturday to do so. The need to establish an Urban Room as a physical hub where development projects, strategies and visions can be discussed was made clear, the audience made it clear that such a space need to be run and work independently from ECC, but with public funding. Further outcomes will be published in our News section shortly.
As always Corinne Richards (supported in the morning by Steve Mariner) catered for us with her selection of tea, coffee and biscuits and in the afternoon with cakes. A big thank you to all who made this double event possible with their time and dedication. We can proudly say that new members were instrumental in making the afternoon event possible.
Photos from the booklet launch and presentations
Photos from the afternoon 'East Gate' workshop session
