Exeter College is seeking permission to replace its plans for a new sports pavilion at Flowerpot Fields with a dedicated teaching facility that no longer provides any changing rooms, equipment storage or pitch viewing facilities.
Exeter City Council approved an application to redevelop the changing rooms which previously occupied the site in February last year. They have since been demolished.
Its decision relied on outdoor recreation-related uses of the proposed new building which would comply with “local and national policies supporting a healthy lifestyle and protecting the environment and local amenity”.
Flowerpot Fields sports pavilion, original proposal elevations. Image: Grainge.
A council officer’s report to the meeting of the planning committee that approved the plans emphasised the importance of the city’s valley parks, within one of which Flowerpot Fields is located.
It said: “The only forms of development appropriate within these areas concern outdoor recreation, agriculture or forestry”.
Confirming that “the proposed sports pavilion would replace an existing changing room facility on the site” it added that the redevelopment “would significantly contribute to the outdoor recreational and leisure uses available on the city’s western side”.
The report only used the word “classroom” once, to summarise a letter in support of the college planning application.
The proposed structure was described at the meeting as a “contemporary pavilion building” which would “offer replacement changing facilities, a classroom, a sports laboratory and a gym”.
Flowerpot Fields sports pavilion, consented scheme floor plans. Image: Grainge.
In February this year, Exeter College applied to vary the planning consent to move the building’s plant to its roof to “protect it from flood events”.
Its agent said the changes would enable the “reconfiguration of the internal layout of the pavilion which will create changing room facilities in keeping with the elite level sports training being delivered through the Exeter Chiefs Academy and Exeter College”.
Partly because the original plans had generated considerable controversy, as they included the fencing, floodlighting and replacement of publicly-accessible playing fields with artificial turf, the variation also prompted several public objections.
Flowerpot Fields sports pavilion, August 2024 revision proposal floor plans. Image: Grainge.
Then, in August, the college changed its proposals again, halving the height of the building to a single storey and removing all the changing rooms, equipment storage and pitch viewing facilities that had made it a sports pavilion in the first place.
Its agent did not say anything about how the flood risks that had prompted it to move the plant to the roof in February would now be mitigated.
It also failed to mention the removal of all the outdoor recreation-related facilities that had provided the basis for the council’s planning consent the previous year, or that the new building would now only provide a dedicated teaching facility.
When the council sought public comments on its plans to extend the college leases at Flowerpot Fields, shortly after the college submitted its revised plans, it described the new building, apparently without irony, as a “changing pavilion”.
At the same time the college started work on site prematurely, still saying the new facility would include changing rooms which would be available for community use.
After a public outcry it subsequently agreed to cease construction and do no more pending the outcome of the public consultation, which has yet to be announced.
Flowerpot Fields sports pavilion, August 2024 revision proposal elevations. Image: Grainge.
We asked Exeter City Council to explain how the latest revisions to the college Flowerpot Fields redevelopment scheme can be considered compliant with the planning permission it approved last year.
It said it could not comment on the application as it is out for public consultation and has yet to be determined.
We also asked Exeter College the same question, as well as why it has removed all outdoor recreation-related facilities from the plans and on what basis the building could now be described as a “sports pavilion”.
It failed to provide any answers by the time we went to press.
Comments on the latest revisions to the Exeter College Flowerpot Fields redevelopment scheme can be left via the city council website until Sunday 13 October.
