The University of Exeter is holding a public consultation on its plans to demolish 30 buildings and construct 50,000m2 of new student accommodation on a fifteen acre Streatham campus site.
The redevelopment of Clydesdale, Nash and Birks Grange Village on the north west corner of the campus between Cowley Bridge Road and Streatham Drive involves the demolition of twelve accommodation blocks, three other large buildings and a range of other structures.
Eight new blocks will be constructed, with the development providing just under 50,000 square metres of internal floor space, around 90% of which will be student accommodation.
The development, which the university recently rebranded as West Park, will be more than half as large again as the East Park development on the other side of the campus and more than ten times the size of the St Sidwell’s Point leisure centre.
It was expected to produce a net increase of between 1,200 and 1,250 student bedspaces but the university recently said it intends the development to provide more than 1,700 new bedspaces.
Clydesdale, Nash and Birks Grange Village redevelopment demolition plan. Image: Willmore Iles.
Exeter City Council granted outline planning permission for the development in July last year despite the plans meeting neither university nor council environmental standards policies.
The Clydesdale and Nash Grove accommodation buildings, all of which are to be demolished, are only thirty years old. Apart from one three and one five page report which provided outline energy consumption estimates for some of the planned new buildings and summary descriptions of their design, no further assessment of the development’s carbon footprint was included with the application.
The university nevertheless described the project as “an opportunity to develop an exemplar of environmentally sustainable buildings; moving well beyond statutory compliance to provide a new standard of low-carbon student accommodation”.
The public consultation on the detailed West Park redevelopment designs is being held between 3.30pm and 8pm on Tuesday 22 November at the Innovation Centre building on Rennes Drive.
The university Estate Services Centre will also be demolished and relocated to a new 3.5 acre site on the north side of the campus near the Belvidere Meadows nature reserve as part of the redevelopment.
A separate consultation is being held on this part of the university’s plans on Wednesday 23 November, also between 3.30pm and 8pm at the Innovation Centre.
Consultation materials will be available online from Tuesday 22 November to Friday 9 December, during which time it will also be possible to respond to the university’s plans.
The university will then submit detailed site redevelopment plans to the city council in December for approval next year, with construction expected to begin in summer 2023.
The first phase of the project is scheduled for completion by autumn 2025 and the second by the following year.
