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THE EXETER DIGEST

Exeter Digest #45: Empty Gorge - Liveable Exeter charter - Spruce Close approval - King Billy redesign

Upcoming community and culture highlights include this year’s International Women’s Festival and the return of Library Lates.

NEWS, ANALYSIS & COMMENT

The Gorge stands 70% empty nearly six months after opening as mounting council tax liability looms

Council development director claims developer interest demonstrates need for co-living in Exeter but works have yet to start on all other such schemes. Full story here.

Liveable Exeter Placemaking Charter consultation skewed towards only one of five ‘core tools’

Private developers’ forum and other major components of new charter not mentioned in council communications, but transparency and new ‘culture of openness’ to ‘help build trust in the planning system’ emphasised throughout. Full story here.

City council approves plans for controversial greenfield site housing

Key details remain unresolved including future ownership and management of green space and public access restrictions during construction period. Full story here.

Top to bottom King Billy student block redesign waved through as minor variation to consented plans

Council throws out Design Review Panel interventions and reneges on commitment to planning committee while developers claim unauthorised destruction of protected medieval wall justified on safety grounds. Full story here.

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ON OUR RADAR

PRISM Exeter speakers series returns // Exeter Library

LGBTQIA+ researchers share their experiences working in STEMM as part of this year’s LGBT+ History Month. Wednesday 28 February. More details here.

International Women’s Festival 2024 // Exeter Phoenix

A free one-day festival celebrating women with live music, workshops, panel discussions, art and more. Saturday 9 March. More details here.

Library Lates returns // Exeter Library

An evening of live music, creative workshops and games. Saturday 23 March. More details here.

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More stories
Proposed revised Mary Arches Bartholomew Street East co-living block elevation

Mary Arches “co-living” developer resists “miniscule” room size criticisms as design revisions prompt further consultation

Changes include increased building footprints and removal of twelve rooms to provide eleven communal kitchens – between residents of 297 studios – while gates obstruct pedestrian thoroughfare and site’s historic setting and significance essentially ignored.

September 2025 permitted replacement scheme west elevation

Council denies data and contrives criteria to dismiss community balance concerns in third King Billy student block approval

Exeter Observer analysis finds more students living in city centre than residents as council bid to include PBSA in housing delivery figures weakens local planning policy – but does not remove it from decision-making altogether.

, updated

Grace Road Fields in March

Botched consultation restarted on sale of 8.5 acres of Riverside Valley Park green space

Council land disposal to include rights to lay underground distribution pipework across River Exe floodplain following “low-to-zero carbon” Grace Road Fields heat plant planning approval in face of Environment Agency sequential test concerns.

Exeter College and Petroc campuses map

Exeter College and Petroc merger set to create largest college group in South West

Colleges hold public consultation on creation of new organisation which they say would educate 16,000 students at Exeter and North Devon campuses and employ 2,000 staff with £100 million turnover.

Proposed Clarendon House student block aerial view

Proposals to replace Clarendon House with 297-bed student accommodation complex submitted for approval

Developer Zinc Real Estate arrives at final proposal for up to ten storey Paris Street roundabout redevelopment after nearly two years of informal public consultations and meetings with city councillors and officers.

On Our Radar
Jo Eades

FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER 2025

Spork! Dead Poets Slam 2025

Halloween spoken-word special featuring Jo Eades and Samuel L. Cohen with a £100 cash prize poetry slam.

EXETER PHOENIX

Carmen with rose graphic

SATURDAY 8 & SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2025

Carmen

Exeter Opera Group performs Bizet’s tale of a free-spirited woman and her passionate and destructive love affair with a soldier.

EXETER CASTLE

Exeter Philharmonic Choir

SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2025

The Weather Book

Exeter Philharmonic Choir performs a new weather-inspired work plus pieces by Brahms, Poulenc and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

EXETER CATHEDRAL