EXETER CITY COUNCIL member’s allowances and expenses came to a total of £409,000 in the year to March 2023, with council leader Phil Bialyk claiming £28,400 and receiving gifts and hospitality at Sandy Park.
The city council has agreed to allow four music concerts at SANDY PARK STADIUM in June with up to 15,000 people in attendance, tickets for which have already been on sale for two months. Its planning committee heard accounts of extreme anti-social behaviour by visitors attending events at the venue as well as other adverse impacts on local residents and imposed traffic and parking, noise, litter and opening and closing time restrictions on the concerts.
An Ofsted monitoring report on DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL CHILDREN’S SERVICES, the fifth since the local authority was judged inadequate in January 2020, has found that the “quality of social work practice across Devon remains inconsistent”. Inspectors found “pockets of better practice” and “some positive changes” but said that weak management oversight, insufficient challenge and poor care planning all continue to cause problems. It also said a high turnover rate in agency social work staff, who make up more than 40% of the workforce, is having an adverse impact.
MAGDALEN ROAD is expected to reopen on Saturday 27 May following pavement widening and its permanent conversion to one-way traffic at a cost of £1 million.
TOPSHAM LIBRARY is to move to a smaller upstairs space following a proposed rent increase for its current ground floor accommodation at Nancy Potter House. The library will close on 12 June and reopen on 27 June, and will be accessible via a lift.
EXETER CITY COUNCIL has promoted its ranking in a “Good Growth for Cities” accountancy firm report despite the report finding that Exeter’s economy is expected to contract significantly during 2023. The council neither mentions that it is the third worst performing city among the 50 surveyed nor provides a link to the report, which the council leader welcomed.
Industry regulator Ofwat has launched an enforcement investigation into SOUTH WEST WATER leakage performance reporting, the accuracy of which has been in doubt following a November 2022 Ofwat assessment of the company’s progress in this area.
A Higher Education Policy Institute report has found that the 2021-22 cohort of 1,285 first-year Exeter INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS brought £140.7 million in net benefits to the UK economy, primarily in the form of tuition fees, accommodation provision and living costs and visitor expenditure. Exeter international student numbers have increased by 20% in the past two years.
PENINSULA TRANSPORT has published a South West transport decarbonisation strategy which hopes to reduce the 4.4 million tCO2e of greenhouse gas emissions the region’s transport currently generates each year. Current policy is only expected to address one quarter of the total by 2050.
An application to construct a 167-bed seven storey co-living block in SUMMERLAND STREET is expected to reignite controversy around Exeter City Council allowing the use of its land to provide “student accommodation in all but name”.
DEVON COUNTY COUNCIL has approved a £1.7 million 700 metre two-way segregated cycling scheme in Rifford Road to form part of the E12 north/south cycle route between Honiton Road and Ludwell Lane.
EXETER CITY COUNCIL is inviting reactions to its proposed amendments to its existing planning policy restrictions on the conversion of residential housing to multiple occupancy dwellings, frequently lived by students, near the university. There are exhibitions from 1-7pm on Wednesday 7 June at Exeter Guildhall, 1.30-7pm on Tuesday 13 June at Newtown Community Centre in Belmont Park and 1-7pm on Tuesday 20 June at St James Church Hall in Mount Pleasant Road. Printed copies of its plans will also be available at the Civic Centre and in libraries until the consultation concludes on 3 July.
The UNIVERSITY OF EXETER is inviting local residents to express their views on the future of Hoopern Valley, below Duryard Valley Park, where it is already intending to site a six acre 1.07MWp solar farm and substation which would involve fencing off part of the publicly-accessible greenspace. Other potential uses for the 38 acre mix of pasture and woodland through which Taddiford Brooke passes are a carbon sequestration and storage facility and a research resource which may involve the construction of buildings on the site. The consultation runs to 26 May.
A public consultation on a draft DEVON, CORNWALL AND ISLES OF SCILLY CLIMATE ADAPTATION STRATEGY which will attempt to minimise the impact of climate change on the South West peninsula is under way until 30 June. The full draft strategy is here. Publication of a revised, final version of the plan is expected in August before partnership organisations will be invited to endorse it during the autumn, four and a half years after Devon County Council convened the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group to “act now to tackle [the] climate emergency”.
The 2023 LOCAL ELECTIONS took place on 4 May. 55 polling stations across Exeter opened from 7am to 10pm to enable the city’s electors to choose thirteen people to represent them on the city council, one in each electoral ward. For the first time voters were required to produce an accepted form of photo ID to cast their ballot in person.
A large fire broke out at EXTON ROAD RECYCLING CENTRE in Marsh Barton on 29 April which took fire crews three hours to extinguish. Four appliances were needed to deal with the fire including an aerial ladder platform. Its cause was the accidental ignition of four tonnes of mixed recycling waste in a lorry trailer.
