Massive Exeter housing scheme approved

Water Lane gets the go-ahead despite doubts over affordable housing

Building more than 1,000 new homes alongside Exeter’s canal will be a ‘watershed’ moment for the city.

But members of the city council planning committee have raised concerns over whether the Water Lane development will provide the affordable homes the city desperately needs.

Chairman Paul Knott (Lab, Exwick) told them: “This is possibly the largest and most complex application we have seen. It is a project 20 years in the making. ”

The Water Lane Development Management Committee now has permission to start work across a huge area which was once home to a meat rendering plant and has been described as the brownest brownfield site in Devon.

The company plans up to 980 flats plus 320 units of student accommodation, along with shops and restaurants, but no agreement has been reached over how much, if any, of the development will be classed as ‘affordable’.

Permission has been granted without a specific requirement to provide the lower-cost homes after the council heard it would not be financially viable for the developers.

But Cllr Diana Moore (Green, St Davids) urged a re-think. “What is unviable today may be viable tomorrow,” she said. “I would urge you to stick to the council’s principles. We can’t just take a ‘fingers-crossed’ approach.

“The majority of the community wants to see Water Lane developed, and developed well. It will be one of the Exeter City Council’s defining legacies.”

Andy Wilkins, speaking on behalf of the developers, said it was an ‘exemplar’ development and a ‘watershed’ moment for Exeter. There would, he said, be regular reviews of the viability of providing affordable homes.

“If economic conditions improve, and it’s viable for us to deliver affordable homes, then they get delivered,” he said.

Supporting the development, Cllr Susannah Patrick (Lab, Exwick) said: “We all know our commitment to affordable homes, but we all accept the exceptional nature of this site.”

The council’s director of city development Ian Collinson said the development would breathe new life into the area, and pointed out that stringent conditions attached to the permission had already taken three years to thrash out with the developers.

Some councillors are concerned that the blocks could be up to nine storeys high and could overshadow the area, while others spoke of the need to maintain round-the-clock access to Gabriel’s Wharf, which is part of the site but is the only place along the canal where heavy cranes can be brought in to lift boats in and out of the water.

A huge crane was brought in to the wharf last week to remove the hulk of the former Brixham and Newlyn trawler Marie Claire.

The planning committee voted unanimously to approve the plans.