At yesterday’s second scrutiny meeting in the series being orchestrated by the city council to air Exeter City Futures’ ideas about using Exeter as an urban guinea pig for its development fund project it was Frazer Osment’s turn to play the ringer.
His firm LDA Design is responsible for the sketches that currently constitute the published Liveable Exeter “vision”, as he said.
He nevertheless omitted to mention that it is also in partnership with Global City Futures, Exeter City Futures’ parent company, at West Exe Business Park, a 60-acre predominantly greenfield development on the edge of the city.
The “eco-friendly” development’s first major announcement was the construction of a roundabout to improve site access from the A379.
The Exeter City Futures sales pitch continued at the meeting despite the company still not providing the documents on which their proposals are based.
Councillors from across the political spectrum understandably voiced their displeasure at being told instead of shown.
The company first said the Cabinet Office wouldn’t let them release the documents, then said that it wanted to sell the idea to stakeholders before letting anyone else see the details, then came up with the pre-election period as their excuse for non-disclosure — apparently a council suggestion.
Meanwhile a freedom of information request submitted by Exeter Observer for the documents fifteen weeks ago has yielded similar results. Next stop: the Information Commissioner.
