Approval nears for major Exeter scheme

Plans to replace a former police station and Magistrates Court in Exeter with a scheme comprising more than 1,000 bedrooms could soon secure the green light.The application concerns a site on Heavitree Road, where the existing buildings vary in height from single storey structures up to a central element comprising five storeys.These were previously occupied by Devon and Cornwall Police and used by the Exeter Victim Support Magistrates’ Court Witness Service.Outline plans have been submitted to demolish the buildings and replace them with a co-living and purpose-built student accommodation scheme across two separate blocks.The Co-living space would occupy the western part of the site with the student accommodation block sitting between this and Gladstone Road.As originally submitted, the former was to comprise 352 studios/rooms but through evolution of the scheme, now contains 358 studios/rooms. All studios would also contain a bed, kitchenette, wardrobe, desk and storage/shelving space.The highest element would be eight storeys.The student accommodation element of the project would comprise 677 rooms across a mixture of studios and cluster flats, with the highest point rising to six storeys.A planning report drawn up ahead of Exeter City Council’s planning committee meeting on 25 July noted that the development would yield a number of “substantial economic, social and environmentally sustainable benefits” through employment during the construction and operational phases of the development and residential accommodation “likely to be in the price range of young people who can’t obtain a mortgage”.Purpose-built student accommodation that “reduces the need to convert the existing housing stock to HMOs was also cited as a positive, alongside the provision of 20 per cent affordable housing and the re-use of a brownfield site in a “sustainable location that reduces the need for reliance upon car travel”.