Exeter City Community Trust is inviting comments on its plans to redevelop King George V Playing Fields in the form of a survey that does not deliver the “wide-ranging, fully open public consultation” promised by the city council when it decided to dispose of the land.
The plans for the 40 acre playing fields at Countess Wear include the addition of an all-weather floodlit artificial playing pitch and 35 extra car parking spaces as well as refurbishment and extension of the existing sports pavilion.
Exeter City Community Trust says it developed the scheme, which it says “will see the community facility revived and restored for the public’s use”, in consultation with the council.
It says it is still “investigating grants and funding opportunities” to deliver the scheme, at an estimated cost of £8.1 million plus feasibility studies, surveys, design fees and VAT.
Exeter City Community Trust King George V playing fields project presentation. Source: Exeter City Council.
In July the council agreed to transfer the 40 acres of land at King George V Playing Fields to the trust for a term of 50 years on the basis of a project “concept scheme”.
The scheme was presented in a report that provides little more than a list of proposed improvements that are copied from an accompanying trust presentation.
The council completed a statutory public consultation on the disposal of the land the previous month, but did not publish its outcome before the decision was taken, and has not published it since.
At the time councillors were told that there would be “a wide-ranging, fully open public consultation on the plans” in which “residents, local community groups and interested parties would be able to fully engage” at “local events”.
However Exeter City Community Trust launched an informal survey last Monday that mentions “a number of activities in the coming weeks to gather views” without giving any details.
No closing date is provided for the survey, and there is no indication that the trust intends to publish the survey results.
It nevertheless says it intends to submit a planning application to the city council at the end of December or in early January next year.
We contacted the trust a week ago to confirm event and survey closing date details, then tried both of the other two contact methods provided on the survey page, but have not received a response.
King George V playing fields proposed layout plan. Source: Exeter City Council.
Exeter City Community Trust is a health and wellbeing charity which works with Exeter City Football Club via a licensing agreement that allows the trust to use the club’s name.
The club is owned and run by its supporters through majority shareholder Exeter City Supporters’ Trust.
The council says it will not grant a lease agreement to the trust without first seeing a “substantive business plan setting out funding for the construction of the first phase” of the project.
At a meeting held last Thursday city councillor Mollie Miller-Boam raised the issue of consultation practices across in the city, in particular in relation to property development, and asked whether the council might not consider offering guidance to encourage good practice.
She was told by council director Jo Yelland that the council “wouldn’t presume to be advising other people on how they consult or deliver on their statutory or other duties”.
