EXETER CITY COUNCIL is expected to impose a 7% rent and service charge increase on council housing tenants – the maximum allowed – at a meeting on 10 January.
EXETER CITY COUNCIL will have to make net savings of £3.835 million next financial year and reduce its reserves to a minimum despite an increase in central government funding according to 2023-24 budget proposals to be discussed at the same meeting.
Repairs and maintenance of council-owned property will be cut back significantly, resulting in further degradation and closure risks, but a £10.6 million loan to Exeter City Living will go ahead.
A progress report on the development of the 2023-24 EXETER CITY LIVING business plan confirms a governance and management review will be taking place following an auditor’s report which found that it had put the council at “significant financial risk” after losing £2.2 million in its first two years of trading.
The report also confirms that the business plan won’t be ready until a fortnight after the financial year to which it applies begins – five months late – and that a contractor still hasn’t been appointed for the company’s Vaughan Road development.
EXETER CITY COUNCIL has been allocated a £1.3 million share over two years of a £654 million government homelessness prevention grant.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is consulting on proposals to update the NATIONAL PLANNING POLICY FRAMEWORK via the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill.
Relaxation of central government-imposed housing targets and changes to the requirement to demonstrate a five year housing land supply are both included, with major implications for the new Exeter Local Plan.
KARIME HASSAN’s tenure as city council CEO is to be terminated following a decision taken in private by councillors, with Bindu Arjoon to be appointed as interim CEO in his place.
EXETER CITY COUNCIL is consulting on a partial review of the charges it levies on developers to pay for community grants, habitat impact mitigation and projects like Marsh Barton railway station.
Its decision to launch a public consultation during the holiday period follows an attempt by opposition councillors to prevent the proposals going ahead in their current form.
Anyone wishing to speak at the subsequent public examination hearing must notify the council in writing before the end of consultation period on 25 January.
EXETER COLLEGE has submitted revised Flowerpot Playing Fields redevelopment plans following widespread objections to proposals to erect a three metre fence around publicly-accessible playing fields and replace them with artificial turf.
A peer-reviewed academic study has found that plane flights taken by the wealthiest people in the UK use more energy than all aspects of the lives of the poorest put together. The findings follow news that EXETER AIRPORT flight volumes all-but returned to pre-pandemic levels this summer.
Proposals to convert empty ground floor retail units to additional student accommodation units in the CENTRAL LIVING STUDENT ACCOMMODATION BLOCK that replaced the Honiton Inn at the foot of Paris Street have been submitted to Exeter City Council for approval.
Permission was granted for the conversion of five ground floor commercial units to nineteen student rooms at The Depot in Cheeke Street last year.
An application to convert EXELAND HOUSE in Tudor Street to a 38-unit co-living block has been submitted for approval by Exeter City Council.
The OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS has published new local authority-level travel to work data derived from the 2021 census.
The UNIVERSITY OF EXETER is promoting its sixth place ranking in the 2023-23 People and Planet university league table, citing its “efforts to lead meaningful action against the climate emergency and ecological crisis” after signing a £16 million five-year sponsorship deal with Shell which it did not publicly announce despite being in business with the company since 2005.
