SPECIAL REPORT
Exeter City Living to be all-but wound up after £4.5 million losses with £10 million owed to council
Exeter City Living, the city council’s subsidiary property development company, is to be all-but wound up after making cumulative losses of more than £4.5 million. It still owes the council more than £10 million against loans intended to deliver hundreds of new homes on sites including Clifton Hill sports centre.
The council intends to acquire the company’s assets by releasing the company from its loan obligations, leaving it to settle the company’s loan liabilities when its creditors are repaid. But it expects the resulting resale value of the surrendered Clifton Hill development site not to cover the company’s debts, with the remaining losses to be written off.
In this special report we examine the company’s financial and development delivery history, the council’s decision-making about the company and the position in which the company’s failure has left the council.
We look at council decisions to loan the company up to £44 million to finance construction and also spend £46.3 million buying the resulting housing, underwriting the company at both ends after failing to change course when new local government borrowing rules rendered the company redundant just ten weeks after it was set up.
We consider the council’s claims about the causes of the company’s failure, explore the findings of an independent review into what happened, and ask what the consequences might be for the council’s Liveable Exeter development scheme, the new Exeter Local Plan and the council’s ability to protect the city’s greenbelt.
We also ask who is responsible and who should be held responsible for the serial performance, governance and viability failings around Exeter City Living that have jeopardised the council’s finances just when it has to cut another £5 million from its budget.
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ON OUR RADAR
Squeeze Box // Maketank
An immersive installation for and about the disabled experience. To Saturday 7 October. More details here.
Food on Film autumn season // Exeter Phoenix
The programme exploring our relationship with food continues with documentary and narrative film screenings and a visit to Exeter Growers Co-operative. Tuesday 10 to Sunday 22 October. More details here.
Spork! Dead Poets Slam // Exeter Phoenix
An October spoken-word poetry special featuring poet and slam champion Rick Dove. Sunday 29 October. More details here.
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