Independent, investigative, in the public interest  Upgrade to paid

NEWS

First Exeter “co-living” block comes on stream with rooms at £946pcm+

Even “affordable” rooms in six storey 133-unit Gladstone Road block would leave many local key workers living below minimum income threshold.

Martin Redfern

Studio rooms in a six storey 133-unit “co-living” block that is currently being built on the Gladstone Road ambulance station site are being marketed to prospective tenants.

Rents for rooms described as “classic” start at £946pcm for a six month tenancy, while those described as “deluxe” cost from £1,008pcm and “premium” rooms cost from £1,106pcm.

Small discounts are available for those who agree to twelve or eighteen month contracts.

Tenancy eligibility criteria include an annual income of at least two and a half times the rent, or a guarantor willing to take responsibility for all a tenant’s liabilities.

This means that those wanting to rent the cheapest rooms in the block must earn at least £28,380pa while an income of £33,180 is required to apply for the most expensive.

Gladstone Road ambulance station site co-living block under construction Gladstone Road ambulance station site co-living block under construction

Median annual earnings for Exeter residents in 2021, the most recent year for which figures are available, were £23,404.

Stagecoach is offering £12.76ph to new Exeter bus drivers, which the company says typically equates to around £26,000pa, a a figure which appears to include around £2,600 of overtime pay.

The starting salary for NHS nurses is £20,270 and the maximum maintenance loan for the living costs of full-time undergraduates is currently £9,706.

Subscribe to The Exeter Digest - Exeter Observer's essential free email newsletter

Your personal information will be processed and stored in accordance with our Privacy Policy

The scheme is supposed to offer 27 of its rooms at “affordable” rates, with priority given to applications from essential local workers, but it is not clear how this will work in practice and there is currently no way to apply for these rooms on the management firm’s website.

Were such rooms available, and priced at 80% of the published rates, the cheapest would still require applicants to earn at least £22,704pa.

A band three NHS nurse with at least three years experience earning £23,177 would be eligible for such a room, but they would have to spend nearly half their take home pay on rent.

This would leave them living far below the minimum income standard that Joseph Rowntree Foundation says provides an acceptable standard of living for a single adult of working age.

The Gorge co-living block classic studio room floorplan The Gorge co-living block “classic” studio room floorplan

At the same time most of the rooms in the block, which are described as “spacious”, provide much less than the minimum 37 square metres of floor space specified in national standards for a one-bed one person dwelling.

The smallest rooms measure just 18 square metres, while the average size of the rooms across the first five storeys of the building is 20 square metres.

The larger rooms on the top floor average 26.5 square metres.

The sample tenancy agreement provided by the building’s management firm also appears to allow two people to rent each room.

The minimum floor space specified in national standards for a one-bed two person dwelling is 50 square metres.

There are no restrictions on students occupying the rooms.

Independent, investigative, in the public interest

Exeter Observer publishes the independent investigative journalism our local democracy needs.

It can do this because it is the city's only news organisation that doesn't have to answer to corporate advertisers, remote shareholders or those in power.

Instead, its not-for-profit public interest business model is simple.

It depends on readers like you to sustain our reporting by contributing a small amount each month.

Lots of people currently chip in like this, but it's not enough to cover our costs. We need more paying subscribers to keep publishing.

135 of the 300 readers we need have signed up so far. Help us reach our goal by joining them today.

Support our work from less than £2/week and get access to exclusive premium content and more.

Upgrade to paid

More stories
Proposed revised Mary Arches Bartholomew Street East co-living block elevation

Mary Arches “co-living” developer resists “miniscule” room size criticisms as design revisions prompt further consultation

Changes include increased building footprints and removal of twelve rooms to provide eleven communal kitchens – between residents of 297 studios – while gates obstruct pedestrian thoroughfare and site’s historic setting and significance essentially ignored.

September 2025 permitted replacement scheme west elevation

Council denies data and contrives criteria to dismiss community balance concerns in third King Billy student block approval

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.

, updated

Grace Road Fields in March

Botched consultation restarted on sale of 8.5 acres of Riverside Valley Park green space

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.

Exeter College and Petroc campuses map

Exeter College and Petroc merger set to create largest college group in South West

Colleges hold public consultation on creation of new organisation which they say would educate 16,000 students at Exeter and North Devon campuses and employ 2,000 staff with £100 million turnover.

Proposed Clarendon House student block aerial view

Proposals to replace Clarendon House with 297-bed student accommodation complex submitted for approval

Developer Zinc Real Estate arrives at final proposal for up to ten storey Paris Street roundabout redevelopment after nearly two years of informal public consultations and meetings with city councillors and officers.

On Our Radar
Jo Eades

FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER 2025

Spork! Dead Poets Slam 2025

Halloween spoken-word special featuring Jo Eades and Samuel L. Cohen with a £100 cash prize poetry slam.

EXETER PHOENIX

Carmen with rose graphic

SATURDAY 8 & SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2025

Carmen

Exeter Opera Group performs Bizet’s tale of a free-spirited woman and her passionate and destructive love affair with a soldier.

EXETER CASTLE

Exeter Philharmonic Choir

SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2025

The Weather Book

Exeter Philharmonic Choir performs a new weather-inspired work plus pieces by Brahms, Poulenc and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

EXETER CATHEDRAL