Decisions on three key Exeter developments postponed

Admin error delays meeting

An important Exeter planning meeting has been postponed after the city council failed to tell objectors it was taking place.

Three major applications were due to be considered by the planning committee on Monday evening [16 January], including one for up to 350 homes at St Bridget Nursery on Old Rydon Lane and new student accommodation on Howell Road.

Councillors were also meant to vote on a revised application for dozens of retirement apartments to replace the former Buckerell Lodge on Topsham Road, after a previous one failed last year.

However, in an email confirming the meeting’s postponement, a council officer said: “We have discovered that due to an administrative error, we did not follow our usual practice of notifying objectors that the meeting was due to take place and giving them the opportunity to speak.”

They therefore warned that “if the meeting goes ahead, any decision made is at risk of being found unsound.”

Dozens of objections have been made to each of the three applications, which councillors have been recommended to approve by planning officers.

The plan for up to 350 homes at St Bridget Nursery sets out how its horticultural and office buildings at Old Rydon Lane would be demolished, followed by a “phased construction” of housing.

Developer Waddeton Park plans 62 one-bedroom homes, 87 two-beds, 138 three-beds and 59 four-bed homes for the site, though this will be confirmed at a later date. Just over a third of the properties would be classed as ‘affordable’ – typically defined as up to 80 per cent of market rates.

At the Buckerell Lodge site, developer McCarthy Stone wants to demolish existing buildings and construct a retirement complex with 62 apartments and associated facilities.

The firm’s previous application failed at the start of last year, with reasons for refusal including that it was an “unduly large, unsympathetic and poorly designed form of development,” along with causing an “unnecessary” loss of protected trees and no contribution towards affordable housing.

Meanwhile, the proposal for Howell Road is to demolish an existing garage on the site and build four flats of purpose-built student accommodation, consisting of two seven-bed units and two six-bed units to give a total of 26 bed spaces.

A new meeting date is to be arranged.