City council planning committee chair Paul Knott used his casting vote to approve final plans for the 50,000m2 University of Exeter West Park redevelopment of its Streatham campus Clydesdale, Nash and Birks Grange Village student accommodation sites.
The redevelopment will involve the demolition of 30 buildings to provide more than 2,000 new student bedrooms, a net increase of nearly 1,500 on the current site provision, and will be ten times the size of St Sidwell’s Point leisure centre.
Furious local residents who say they have been stone-walled by the university during the three-year planning process were dismayed at the decision.
