The public consultation on plans for a student accommodation and “co-living” complex in Heavitree Road has been extended to Sunday 9 November following revisions to the scheme.
The application for full planning permission to build an 813-bed complex on the three-acre site of the former police station and magistrates court was submitted in May this year. 399 student bedrooms and 414 “co-living” bedspaces are proposed in seven blocks up to six storeys tall.
The application has so far received 32 public comments of which 29 are objections. They follow the exhibition of pre-application plans for a 762-room scheme on the site at an event in September last year which prompted 22 responses of which six were in support.
Since the application was submitted in May, developers NCO (Seven) Limited and Nixon Homes Limited have made several revisions in response to meetings held with Exeter City Council officers and comments made by consultees.
The revisions include changes to roof materials, the swapping of a gym and communal workshop and the repositioning of an accessible parking space and outdoor ramps and steps, among other things.
Illustrative view of proposed student accommodation blocks from Heavitree Road.
Image: Exeter City Council.
The developers say the new application “directly addresses and resolves key concerns raised in a previous application”.
The council refused the previous application for a 955-room scheme in two blocks up to seven storeys tall in February 2023.
The scheme, which was enthusiastically recommended by council development director Ian Collinson, was described by planning committee members as “a blot on the landscape” and “hideous”.
It underwent eight design iterations, four rounds of public consultation and was considered at no fewer than six planning committee meetings before it was eventually refused by councillors.
A planning inspector then upheld the committee’s decision at appeal twelve months later, saying that the proposed buildings would appear as “vastly larger than any other nearby building”.
Illustrative view of proposed “co-living” blocks from Heavitree Road.
Image: Exeter City Council.
Architect Brown & Company says that the new proposals reduce the “overall height, footprint and mass of the development” compared with the rejected scheme.
It also says that the four-storey and five-storey “co-living” blocks it proposes on the western side of the development site have been reduced in scale in response to the two-storey residential houses in immediately adjacent Higher Summerlands and Lower Summerlands.
It adds that the six-storey student block that it proposes on the northern side of the development site is “appropriately scaled for the area” and “no taller that the neighbouring Gorge property”.
The Gorge, which is the only “co-living” block that has so far been built in Exeter and is still only 80% occupied according to the operator, is five storeys tall. It overlooks two-storey residential houses in Sandford Walk and flats in three-storey blocks in St Matthew’s Close.
These would be additionally overlooked by both the six-storey student block and the six-storey “co-living” blocks that are proposed for the Heavitree Road police station site.
Illustrative floor plan of development proposals. Image: Brown & Company.
Similar proposals have proliferated across the city centre in recent months.
Eutopia Homes revised its July application for full planning permission for a 300-bed seven storey “co-living” complex between Bartholomew Street East and Mary Arches Street earlier this month, triggering a second public consultation on the plans.
Last month the city council approved a 108-bed, eight storey student accommodation block on the site of the former King Billy public house in Longbrook Street.
Pre-application proposals for a 145-bed six storey student block on the corner of Summerland Street and Verney Street were also exhibited last month, and plans to replace Clarendon House with 297 more student beds in three blocks up to ten storeys tall were submitted to the council for approval.
However plans for a previously-approved 145-bed six-storey “co-living” block, also in Summerland Street, were separated into discrete demolition and construction phases a fortnight ago, and major schemes at Harlequins and Haven Banks both remain stalled.
Comments on the Heavitree Road proposals can be submitted via the city council website until Sunday 9 November 2025 and via email to consultations@exeter.gov.uk until the council planning committee meets to determine the application.
