A planning inspector has upheld Exeter City Council’s decision to refuse the addition of a fifth storey to a four-storey city centre scheme that was approved twelve years ago but has not been built.
Proposals to increase the height of the building, which fronts onto Fore Street but extends down West Street towards Grade I listed St Mary Steps church, were rejected at a meeting of the council planning committee in September 2023.
They prompted 140 objections, which cited a wide range of potential impacts including the loss of commercial space on the ground and lower ground floors.
The building currently houses Rochelle’s Curtains & Blinds in Fore Street and Crankhouse Coffee in West Street.
Corner of Fore Street and West Street with St Mary Steps church in the background
Following the city council’s refusal to grant planning permission for the revised scheme, applicant Cela Enterprises lodged an appeal with the planning inspectorate in April last year.
The scheme’s architect claimed, in a statement justifying the appeal against the council’s refusal, that planning committee members rejected the proposals because of a “political reaction to 139 objectors and a ward member opposing the application”.
The statement said that they did so to “appease the weight of objectors’ orchestrated opinion and satisfy their own predisposition against a scheme their authority previously approved”, adding that their refusal was “if not malevolent, certainly misguided”.
Despite the planning inspector’s decision to dismiss the appeal, the scheme retains extant permission to rework the existing buildings, adding one full and one stepped-back storey to the West Street elevation and removing all commercial space to provide thirteen flats.
Illustrative West Street elevations of approved vs refused schemes. Image: Exeter City Council.
Consent for the original plans, approved in January 2013, was conditional on development commencing within three years.
In 2015 a council planning officer accepted minor preparation works for a basement bin store as sufficient to constitute commencement and the planning permission became permanent.
The planning inspector said that this extant consent formed a “significant material consideration as there is a greater than theoretical possibility of this ‘fallback’ being developed in full”.
The appeal, however, focussed on the effect of the proposed scheme on the Dawlish Warren special area of conservation and the wider Exe Estuary, both of which are protected sites.
It also considered whether the scheme would preserve the setting of listed buildings on West Street and St Mary Steps Church, and its potential impact on the living conditions of residents in adjacent buildings.
The inspector found it would cause “no harm to heritage assets or to the living conditions of neighbouring occupiers” but would cause “significant harm to the integrity of protected sites”.
The inspector added that “planning decisions should conserve and enhance the natural environment, reflect the character of an area and safeguard the environment. Therefore, the proposed development is contrary to the development plan as a whole”.
