Social housing fears on edge of Exeter

Developers will have to make changes to plans near the Science Park.

Applicants Eagle One MMlll had hoped to build 33 new homes on phase 8 of the Redhayes/Tithebarn Green development close to the Exeter Science Park.

Their scheme went before East Devon District Council’s Development Management Committee  as the Local Plan only allocates 1,500 new homes to be built in the area North of Blackhorse/Redhayes, but granting this application would have taken the number to 1,513.

However while the additional 13 homes did not unduly concern the committee, they were unhappy with the eight affordable homes being ‘stuck in the corner’.

Chris Rose, the council’s Development Manager, told the committee that while council policy says that affordable housing should be ‘pepper-potted’ across the development, the registered provider had preferred the affordable units are all located in the North West corner and are not dispersed throughout the development ‘for ease of maintenance’ and had declined to move them to the western boundary of the site.

But Cllr Paul Hayward said that it was not as if they would have to travel immense distance and this was just creating a social housing hub.

He added: “This looks to be developers building a new private estate and they are obliged to have some affordable, so they cram them in the corner in an antisocial way so it doesn’t affect the viability of the rest of the site.

“It is an attempt to keep the residents in the social blocks away from everyone else. By deliberately sticking them in a corner, they are still stuck in a corner, and can leave and go without ever bothering anyone else in the development. This is unacceptable.”

He called for the application to be deferred to allow for some material changes to the layout of the site to take place, including more amenity space or more pepper potting of the affordable housing units.

Cllr Eileen Wragg had called for the committee to refuse the application, calling the developer’s reasons for not ‘pepper-potting’ were disingenuous, but Henry Gordon Lennox, the council’s Strategic Lead for Governance and Licensing, said that a deferral to allow further negotiations rather than the refusal route would be the better route to go down, and that if they still didn’t agree to any changes then the committee could then decide to refuse.

Cllr David Key said that it would be ‘ridiculous’ to refuse when negotiations with the applicants could overcome the problems, and that if they won any appeal, ‘they can do what they want and we’ve lost everything’.

The proposal to refuse the application was lost by 11 votes to three, with councillors then voting by 13 votes to one abstention to defer the application to allow further discussions over the layout of the development and over issues of biodiversity to take place.