‘High-rise mess’ - Residents and civic society oppose new Exeter co-living development

Almost 300 ‘co-living’ apartments are likely to go up on the site of an Exeter city centre car park, despite the plan being described by one objector as a ‘high-rise mess’.

If city planners say yes next week, the Mary Arches multi-storey will be knocked down to make way for the two blocks, which will be up to six storeys high.

Members of the city council’s planning committee are expected to give the go-ahead for a revised version of the scheme when they meet on Monday (January 19).

The huge housing block was first unveiled by Eutopia Exeter Arches in May last year, and the latest plans show the number of units scaled back from 309 to 297. They also offer more communal kitchens and dining areas, at the expense of having fewer cycle spaces.

Exeter City Council says redeveloping the car park for new housing will help address the city’s housing shortage and generate much-needed funds. The car park, it says, is economically obsolete and expensive to maintain. The co-living apartments are aimed at local people and are not designed to be used as student accommodation.

The latest application includes 60 units for affordable private rent.

A report to the planning committee explains that the development will redeploy a brownfield site and reduce cross-city car traffic. The development will be car-free, and the size of the communal spaces meets national guidelines.

The developers will pay £87,000 towards local GP services; £139,000 for travel improvements; £146,436 for ‘car club’ vehicle provision; and hundreds of pounds per bedspace towards local parks and playing fields.

Failure to meet the so-called ‘Section 106’ conditions will mean planning permission could be lost.

The Exeter Civic Society says the revisions do not go far enough for it to withdraw its objections to the plan, and 24 of the 26 comments received from members of the public are objections.

One says: “This plan has not been thought through and is a poorly designed high-rise mess.”

Another adds: “This is not how we as a city should aspire to treat our residents. The only beneficiaries are the landlords.”

Among the objectors are Green councillors Diana Moore and Tess Read, both of whom represent the St Davids ward in which the development site sits.

They have raised a number of objections to the scheme, among them a question mark over Exeter’s need for hundreds of co-living units.