Exeter set to get co-living spaces

Plans go ahead despite doubts

A major new development in Exeter will almost certainly include ‘co-living’ spaces despite claims people in the city don’t want them.

Mary Arches car park in the city centre is to be demolished to make way for housing as a way of recouping money lost with the collapse of its Exeter City Living housing company.

A decision to wind up the company has left the council around £10 million out of pocket, and the council believes the Mary Arches and Clifton Hill sites will go a long way towards that target.

It has already decided to dispose of the two sites for development, pledging that green spaces at Clifton Hill will be kept for the public despite a temptation to raise even more money by selling them as well as the site of a former leisure centre there.

The council’s policy is that neither Clifton Hill nor Mary Arches can be used for purpose-built student accommodation, and instead has an aim of creating  housing for local people.

But the proposal for ‘co-living’ spaces has prompted opposition. Co-living means residents get a private ‘bedsit’ room in a furnished building with shared common areas.

Cllr Diana Moore (Green, St Davids) said Mary Arches should be a mixed residential development, not co-living.

“We need to bring forward something which will create a community,” she said. “The people of Exeter do not share this enthusiasm for co-living.”

And Cllr Amy Sparling (Green, St Davids) added: “We do need homes, but this needs to be somewhere you can call your own, somewhere you can live in the long term.

“Co-living is not going to provide homes for the people of Exeter. If we are looking to build homes, these short-term living arrangements will not do that.”

But council leader Phil Bialyk (Lab, Exwick) hit back, telling his fellow councillors to ‘stop rubbishing co-living.’

“There are a lot of people out there who would give their right arms to have somewhere to live for a period,” he said. “There are people who want these homes in Exeter.”