The ‘Regulations 19’ version now contains a glossary, which we had asked for since the very first version. Terms are now defined and can be easily found. Examples are: ‘Core Strategy’, ‘Digital exchange’, ‘Human in scale’ or ‘Optimal densities’.
The policy about Co-living (H6) has improved, but we still found some inconsistencies, e.g. the inclusion of ‘studios’. Most importantly the City Council will now ‘publish additional guidance to amplify Policy H6 in due course’ — something to watch out for.
ECS questioned the soundness of a policy for ‘Ground-mounted photovoltaic arrays’ (CC4) and suggested widen this to all forms of PV arrays, but also include wind energy turbines into the energy mix the Exeter Plan is setting out.
We made the point why reducing Affordable Housing to 15% (from 35%) on Brownfield Land does not seem to generate the affordable and social housing Exeter according to the 2024 ‘Exeter Local Housing Needs Assessment’ needs over the next 20 years.
Interesting to see the boundaries for the East Gate redevelopment area being changed again, now not including the southern Sidwell Street side between Cheeke Street and the ODEON roundabout, and also excluding the Triangle Car Park. The South Gate development has been reduced from 170 to 81 homes, but the Red Cow development went up again from 280 to 442 and Water Lane sees another increase, this time from 1,600 to 1,861. Marsh Barton is no longer listed as major development site till 2041.
Economic growth is no longer only defined by transformational sectors, but includes ‘retaining established employment areas’, a point we had campaigned for. But the details of the policies in this section, we still found a lot to comment on.
The ‘History and Heritage’ chapter benefitted from much more detail, but what it said about the City Wall still did not go far enough. So we commented on the soundness of that policy.
A full list of our representations can be found in the side column.