SATURDAY 25 APRIL TO THURSDAY 14 MAY 2026
Our Land
Documentary exploring the right to roam campaign for access to the countryside.
EXETER PHOENIX
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Two luxury city centre apartment blocks are being advertised for sale by Nooko, the developer responsible for renovating the ROYAL CLARENCE HOTEL. The company is seeking £13.5 million for Paternoster House, which it described as a “blueprint for Exeter’s future”, where several of the 29 flats in the block are currently being marketed to rent for between £1,950 and £2,383 per month. It is also looking to sell Concord House, a nearby block of 28 flats in South Street, for £7 million. A two-bed flat there is currently being marketed to rent for £2,167 per month. Both sale advertisements claim that the buildings are fully let.
Exeter City Council has finally published an EXETER PORT AND HARBOUR BUSINESS PLAN after repeated requests from river and estuary users to see the document, which was apparently prepared three years ago. Despite purporting to cover the three years from 2025-26 onwards the plan only includes a summary budget for 2024-25. When an Exeter Harbour Board member asked whether the council intended to remedy this by adding forecast future budgets to the plan, a council officer said that the 2024-25 budget would “probably be the total budget over the next three years”. They added that there was “some work to be done around budget arrangements” and that “any income changes” would “need to be considered”.
The High Court has dismissed a judicial review claim brought by Sandy Park Farm Partnership against a planning inspectorate decision to allow planning permission for 350 homes on the site of the former ST BRIDGET’S NURSERY in Newcourt. The inspectorate allowed an appeal last January against Exeter City Council’s failure to determine an application to develop the site within the statutory time limit which had been submitted by Waddeton Park Limited in October 2023. A similar application for the site, approved by the city council planning committee in March 2023, had been quashed by the High Court in 2024 in an earlier case also brought by Sandy Park Farm Partnership, a property and farming business based in Old Rydon Lane with an interest in land to the north-east of the former plant nursery and garden centre.
CLARENDON HOUSE is being advertised to let as office space three months after Exeter City Council planning committee approved the demolition of the block and its replacement with student accommodation. Developer Zinc Real Estate first published its proposals to replace the five-storey 1960s office block with student accommodation in December 2023 before revising them twelve months later. In January last year, however, it submitted plans to convert the block to 32 residential flats before also then submitting plans to demolish it and build a ten-storey 297-bed student block in August. The council has yet to grant consent for either the approved student accommodation or the residential conversion plans.
SATURDAY 25 APRIL TO THURSDAY 14 MAY 2026
Documentary exploring the right to roam campaign for access to the countryside.
EXETER PHOENIX
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The votes cast for each candidate with vote share and party vote share change in each ward plus turnout, postal votes and the distribution of seats.
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Our guide to casting your ballot in person, by post and by proxy as well as voter ID requirements and regulations for casting postal votes.
Send us campaign materials as this year’s contest enters its final week so we can fact-check candidates’ claims and hold them to their pledges after the votes have been counted.
Council leader Phil Bialyk celebrates rapid Exeter population rise but fails to mention think-tank findings on falling disposable incomes, declining living standards, low wages and unaffordable housing – or impact of student numbers on population figures.
Defiant Phil Bialyk says Exeter election results are vote of confidence in party which will propose own portfolio holders, leader and deputy at May annual meeting.
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City council elections take place on Thursday 7 May. Our comprehensive guide covers who’s standing where, wards to watch and the backdrop to this year’s ballot, which looks set to end fourteen years of Labour majority control over the city.
Public consultation on changes explores possibility of closing some branches altogether despite claims to the contrary while Libraries Unlimited contract extension decision scheduled for six weeks before consultation ends.
Complex of seven blocks up to six storeys tall on site of police station and magistrates court to bring purpose-built temporary accommodation tally to 3,250 beds in Newtown alone – while failing to meet local plan minimum building separation policy.
Labour councillors plumb new depths to cling to power – and personal financial gain – as government-backed contempt for democracy enables seven of eight executive members to avoid ballots in their wards until council abolition in 2028.
Council land disposal to include rights to lay underground distribution pipework across River Exe floodplain following “low-to-zero carbon” Grace Road Fields heat plant planning approval in face of Environment Agency sequential test concerns.
Rejection of voluntary and community sector calls for more inclusive response follows thirteen-year council failure to comply with legal duties under crime and disorder legislation in relation to Exeter Community Safety Partnership.
Exeter Observer analysis finds more students living in city centre than residents as council bid to include PBSA in housing delivery figures weakens local planning policy – but does not remove it from decision-making altogether.
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Five gas boilers to provide 80% of “low-to-zero carbon” Grace Road Fields plant generation capacity for distribution to institutional consumers through privately-run 13-mile underground network expected to take ten years to complete.
Charges for waterways access are set to be imposed from the quay and canal basin to the coast under proposed Harbour Revision Order powers after six years of rising costs propelled by pursuit of Port Marine Safety Code compliance. They risk driving away craft of all sizes, from kayaks to yachts, while redevelopment threatens canalside land – but it’s not too late to change course.
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Leigh Curtis is deputy editor of Exeter Observer and a director of its publisher Exeter Observer Limited.
She writes most of our community and culture stories as well as news reports and contributes to features and investigations.
Leigh holds a degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. She leads on marketing and also manages our finances and administration.
She is an accredited UK press card holder and a member of the National Union of Journalists.
Martin Redfern is Exeter Observer’s editor and a director of its publisher Exeter Observer Limited.
He writes many of our news stories and features, leads on investigations and maintains the Exeter Observer website.
Martin holds a masters degree in Journalism with distinction at Birkbeck, University of London.
He is an accredited UK press card holder and a member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists and the Society of Editors.
