University comes clean on true Exeter campus student numbers over past two decades
Figures obtained under Freedom of Information Act confirm between 7,500 and 12,000 more students based in city each year than university numbers suggest – until this year – with major implications for council planning policy.
NEWSWIRE
Exeter in brief - May 2023
Keeping you informed with local news that matters.
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NEWSWIRE
Exeter in brief - April 2023
Keeping you informed with local news that matters.
, updated
NEWSWIRE
Exeter in brief - February 2023
Keeping you informed with local news that matters.
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NEWS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
30,000 students based at Exeter university campuses in 2022-23
Freedom of information request reveals significant drop on last year with postgraduate students accounting for 58% of fall in numbers.
NEWSWIRE
Exeter in brief - January 2023
Keeping you informed with local news that matters.
, updated
ANALYSIS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
University of Exeter lags behind on female pay and employment terms
HESA figures show poor performance compared with Universities UK members and only incremental changes over past five years, mostly since staff began industrial action over pay, pensions and working conditions.
NEWS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
Information Commissioner to investigate university over student accommodation numbers refusal
Compliance failure follows university admission that nearly 39,000 students based at Exeter campuses in 2021-22, suggesting around three quarters of city's private rented housing stock occupied by students.
NEWSWIRE
Exeter in brief - December 2022
Local news that matters
, updated
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
University of Exeter staff strike in largest walkout in sector history
Dispute over pay, pensions and working conditions continues as universities generate record income.
NEWS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
University holds public consultation on 1,700 bed West Park redevelopment design
Outline plans to demolish 30 buildings and construct 50,000m2 of student accommodation on fifteen acre Streatham campus site did not comply with university or council environmental policies.
NEWS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
University says 39,000 students – nearly 30% of city's population – based at Exeter campuses in 2021-22
Freedom of information request reveals 11,500 more students than published FTE figures with major implications for council planning policy but university refuses to disclose numbers in PBSA vs residential housing stock.
ANALYSIS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
Heavitree Road developer gets sixth pitch for student/co-living complex
Eight design iterations, six council meetings, four consultation rounds and two deferrals combine to impede public participation in planning process on key Liveable Exeter site and increase chances of decision being overturned at appeal.
COMMENT ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
University emissions study confirms Net Zero Exeter plan redundancy
Council retains Exeter City Futures' services despite history of delivery failures and lack of capacity to support defined decarbonisation targets.
ANALYSIS ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
Exeter greenhouse gas report disregards hundreds of thousands of tonnes of annual city emissions
Restricted scope of study misrepresents scale of city's impact to produce partial decarbonisation targets while ignoring opportunities to reduce emissions imported by residents, businesses and visitors, guaranteeing net zero failure.
ANALYSIS ⁄ ECONOMY & ENTERPRISE
Exeter beset by unaffordable housing, low graduate retention and economically inactive over 50's
Exeter City Council executive ignores key challenges flagged in major council-commissioned employment and skills research report.
MONDAY 27 JUNE 2022
PRISM Exeter Pride month queer science celebration
Devon network champions LGBTQIA+ STEMM contributors and the impact they have had on young people in queer science competition.
UNIVERSITY OF EXETER
ANALYSIS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
Council consultants confirm 58% of Exeter's university students live in city's residential housing stock
2021-22 university figures suggest there are now more than 4,500 student HMOs in the city, consistent with ONS findings, with number set to surpass Exeter's council housing provision.
ANALYSIS ⁄ DEMOCRACY & GOVERNANCE
Decision to send council CEO and director to work for Exeter City Futures is "disservice to citizens"
City council disregards governance, risk and conflict of interest issues despite cross-party challenges and conflates decarbonisation agenda with property development financing scheme.
ANALYSIS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
Pennsylvania petitioners expose fifteen years of flawed student accommodation policy-making
City council policies based on faulty premises, inaccurate information and miscalculated projections have failed to prevent mass student occupation of Exeter residential housing stock despite the proliferation of Purpose Built Student Accommodation across the city.
NOTES & SKETCHES ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
Must try harder
The university recently let us know that its carbon emissions were down 19% during the 2020-21 academic year, although as the reductions came mostly from travel that didn’t take place because of the COVID-19 pandemic we look forward to seeing how it will frame what will presumably therefore be an emissions increase next year...
NOTES & SKETCHES ⁄ ECONOMY & ENTERPRISE
Keep it in the family
Earlier this year the University of Exeter drew attention to the South West’s significant social mobility issues, which it described as “blighting young lives”, when it launched a research project hoping to better understand the region’s challenges...
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
University of Exeter ranked bottom of Russell Group and 103rd overall in social mobility league table
Landmark study by Institute for Fiscal Studies, Sutton Trust and Department for Education finds University of Exeter undergraduates are less likely to come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and those that do are less likely to be high earners.
NOTES & SKETCHES ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
Net Zero Exeter 2030?
Research by University of Exeter students has concluded that local councils need to provide clearer and more accessible information on how they are addressing the climate emergency...
NEWS ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
COP-EXE event showcases local responses to global climate crisis
Exeter city centre venues host exhibitions promoting local action to mitigate the climate crisis in tandem with the COP26 conference in Glasgow.
NOTES & SKETCHES ⁄ ECONOMY & ENTERPRISE
Public sector pay pals?
Instead of announcing the biggest council funding rise for over a decade, Exeter City Council’s press team marked budget day by celebrating Exeter’s latest quarterly YouGov popularity rating. The Paris Street PR machine forgot to mention that those surveyed need never have visited the city...
ANALYSIS ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
Greens call for evidence-based Exeter carbon budget as city council clings to net zero rhetoric
The Net Zero Exeter plan lacks baseline emissions figures, recognised scope definitions and measurement and reporting frameworks, placing the city's decarbonisation agenda at risk. The opportunity for Exeter to demonstrate genuine climate crisis leadership nevertheless remains.
NOTES & SKETCHES ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
Less is more
The University of Exeter published its long-awaited “Strategy 2030” on Monday. It’s a remarkable document, not least because of the Nobel-sized aspirations it expresses...
NOTES & SKETCHES ⁄ ECONOMY & ENTERPRISE
Partnership agreement of the week
In a hotly-contested field, this week’s winner must surely be the new Exeter Civic University Agreement, which found its way onto last night’s city council Executive agenda...
ANALYSIS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
University drops environmental standards for huge student flats development with council approval
University of Exeter and Exeter City Council both ignore own policies in plans to demolish 30 buildings and construct 50,000m2 of new student accommodation, telling us more about their priorities than their climate leadership claims.
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
Kinder Exeter community festival brings compassion and colour to city centre
Week-long event bringing artists, academics, students and communities together for online and outdoor activities was first of planned annual festivals facilitated by Maketank artists' collective.
Exeter Digest #3: Devon Pension Fund fossil fuel investment - SW Exeter district heating network - Exeter local election results
The third edition of our essential newsletter offers something for everyone on sunny bank holiday weekend.
Exeter Digest #2: Exeter local elections guide - Majority want net zero by 2030 - Council meetings to resume in person
With the local elections a week today and a bank holiday weekend on its way we thought we'd publish our second edition a day early to give you extra time to take your pick of our top stories.
Exeter Digest #1: Statistics in the balance - Dartmoor Line to reopen - Local elections are coming
In this first edition of Exeter Observer's email newsletter we introduce our format and bring you up to date with our coverage over the past couple of months.
NEWS ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
Atmospheric concentration of CO2 now 50% above pre-industrial levels
Met Office says 2021 will be first year on record in which symbolic threshold breached for more than a few days as UK prepares to host COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
NEWS ⁄ CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT
University research consortium launches "Accelerate to Net Zero" project
The GW4 Alliance of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter universities has launched a collaborative project aimed at accelerating decarbonisation across South West England and Wales.
NEWS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
University plans to demolish 30 buildings to construct ~50,000m2 of new student accommodation
Permission sought for 1,250 new bedrooms on fifteen acre Streatham campus Clydesdale and Birks development site, half as large again as 1,200 bedroom East Park development.
NEWS ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
Renewed permission sought for Longbrook Street student block
Developers are seeking to renew previously-granted planning permission for an eight storey 108-bed student accommodation block on the site of the King Billy public house.
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
University of Exeter strike ends third week with rally and concert at St David's Church
The Exeter branch of the University & College Union (UCU) is taking part in four weeks of national industrial action over pensions, equal pay for female and BAME staff, increasing workloads and the use of casual employment contracts.
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
University of Exeter PRISM network champions queer STEMM pioneers
Exeter students celebrated the lives of polar explorer and botanist Elke Mackenzie, inventor, engineer and futurist Nikola Tesla and astronaut and children's author Sally Ride in winning LGBT+ network competition entries.
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
University of Exeter staff strike over pay, pensions and working conditions
The Exeter branch of the University & College Union (UCU) is taking part in a national eight day strike for fair pay and pensions, including equal pay for female and BAME staff, and against casualisation and increasing workloads.
NEWS ⁄ COMMUNITY & SOCIETY
Education union challenges university to address widespread casualisation of teaching staff
Exeter University & College Union (UCU) launched an anti-casualisation campaign on Friday as a prelude to negotiation with the University of Exeter over academic staff contracts.
SATURDAY 30 MARCH-SUNDAY 2 JUNE 2019
Extreme Imagination - Inside the Mind's Eye
University of Exeter research fellow Dr Matthew MacKisack guides us through a RAMM exhibition that explores works by artists, writers and makers with widely varying visual imaginations.
RAMM
COMMENT ⁄ PLANNING & PLACE
Exeter St James regeneration
How can the supply of low-cost, incrementally investable city centre accommodation be stimulated to attract and retain creative, technically-skilled young entrepreneurial talent?
