St Sidwell's Point

£1 million leisure overspend fuels £3.2 million city council deficit
2022-23 budget review confirms £2.2 million annual leisure subsidy to continue with St Sidwell’s Point expected to make a loss for at least five years while another £22 million to be spent on Exeter City Living Vaughan Road development.

City council sustainable food policy is a climate crisis red herring
Proposed changes don’t apply to council meetings or most council food provision and are expected to have unquantifiably small impact while diverting resources from major decarbonisation challenges.

Is the grass really greener in Exeter city centre?
Academic research placing Exeter retail area at top of green space table was nationally reported, locally misrepresented then repurposed as booster fuel by local politicians overlooking study’s social justice focus.

Council borrowing nearly triples in three years as property acquisition and development loans mount
Freedom of information request reveals five paragraph “outline business plan” for £55 million Guildhall shopping centre investment.

How to inflate housing costs and influence people
Despite Exeter’s rapidly worsening housing crisis, the council has continued its relentless promotion of the city as a destination to potential incomers by commissioning a coterie of Instagram influencers to flog the place to their followers after spending a May weekend here.

Do Exeter Labour election campaign claims stand up to scrutiny? Part II: Economy & city centre
The second in our 2022 local elections series examines Exeter Labour claims about the city centre and Exeter’s wider economy, including its misrepresentation of content marketing materials as authoritative sources of information about the city.