Welcome to Exeter St James Community Trust
Hands Off – This is St James!
The Neighbourhood Plan called upon to see off a serious threat to our neighbourhood’s future
What’s this all about?
The Exeter Plan — the City Council’s proposed new local plan to 2040 — introduces a City Centre Boundary that reaches deep into St James. This new designation would bring city-centre-scale development, priority for student accommodation, extended hours of activity, increased footfall and night-time economy uses into residential streets long protected by the Article 4 Direction explicitly because of existing severe demographic imbalance
red line = proposed city centre boundary; blue area = St James Local Community Hub; P = Howell Road Car Park
The proposed boundary also subsumes:
- Howell Road car park – a key NP windfall site for affordable homes
- virtually all of St James Local Community Hub – school, businesses, community and faith premises, and including Queen’s Crescent Garden, our community-owned Local Green Space
This directly conflicts with the St James Neighbourhood Plan (NP), which currently remains the most recently adopted part of Exeter’s Development Plan. The Exeter Plan makes no reference to the NP and appears to have been prepared without assessing general conformity, as required.
The Trust has raised these issues with the Examination Inspectors, who have agreed that the evidence provided is germane to the soundness of the Exeter Plan.
While we all await the Inspectors’ verdict, the Council has launched consultation on its new City Centre Strategy, which the Exeter Plan says will ‘set the direction for the city centre over the coming years’.
On careful scrutiny, the consultation materials worryingly reveal even more of residential St James absorbed into the city centre, where one of the ‘priority actions’ is to make this area ‘feel animated during both the day and night-time’ by creating conditions for people to stay longer … so it is vibrant for all during the day and night’.
If you are concerned we strongly encourage you to respond – click here for further information and why we need to make a stand.
Click here for information & guidance for respondents to EXETER CITY CENTRE CONSULTATION
