The Exeter Building Boom

The most telling fact was buried away somewhere in a reader's letter in the Express & Echo. The new houses and flats - now 170 - to be built on the County Ground in St Thomas must be built 2 ft above ground level, in case of flooding.

Well, St Thomas was developed as a major suburb of Exeter over the past hundred years. Of course, St Thomas church has stood for centuries and any old map of the district will show a few dwellings several hundred years ago, mainly the fine, Elizabethan Cowick Barton manor house on the Cowick Lane ridge and some buildings by the River Exe and the original crossing itself. But now the developer Bellway is to squeeze in 170 new flats and 4 storey houses, all in the six acres of the old County Ground.

By the way, is St Thomas even Exeter? The recent Boundary Commission controversy highlighted the historical association of the St Thomas district with the city of Exeter, the other side of the river. I tend to include it as a natural part of Exeter.

Bellway paid about £12 million for this site and I suppose they must make enough money to recover the cost. Maybe they paid too much in the first place. It's a cramped site, tucked away behind the tiny Victorian terraces of Regent Street and Ferndale Road. Indeed, some of the old County Ground was sold off years ago, so there is even less space now.

I make the following calculations for new housing in central Exeter:

Isca Place : 167
Princesshay: 200
County Ground: 170
Misc. 300

Basically, there are about 900 new flats and houses currently being built right in the middle of Exeter. Then, add about another 2000 for all of the new sites further out of town, such as Southam Fields, Gras Lawn, Topsham Road Naval Depot, and so forth, and you have a collossal increase in the population of Exeter. And that's not including the new town at Whimple (East Devon) and any number of other developments. Is it a good thing?

Even on one of my favourite walks, I notice a new house going up in Rosebank Crescent, just squeezed in on a portion of old garden, I presume. When will the boom end?


Discovering Exeter 6 - West of the River. Hazel Harvey. Exeter Civic Society 1989.