Local News Items 

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News in St Leonards

TOPIC
Mount Radford Lawn - The Deaf Academy are in a Pre-Planning application preparation.
Weirfield Road - Careless Planning consent
Creative Street Festival 2025 - Magdalen Road will host a festival of creativity
Larkbeare House - Under Offer (2/4/25)
St Lukes Campus redevelopment - sometime in the far future
Devon County Hall - Protection of the grounds against development.


The news of what's on and what's happening in St Leonards can be found in several places.

the Neighbourhood News

Our wonderful Neighbourhood News gets delivered to 3200 houses in the St Leonards area every two months and it contains articles, advertisements and up-coming events. To find out more go to the Neighbourhood News web page.

Noticeboards

Here is a link to our virtual noticeboard which shows the same events and posters as the real noticeboard which is on the green opposite the shops in Magdalen Road.

Mobirise

 EXETER DEAF ACADEMY PLAYING FIELD. (Mount Radford Lawn.)

As reported in the Neighbourhood News, the future of Mount Radford Lawn looks rosier than it has done over the last few years. The Deaf Academy, the owners, want to celebrate their 200th anniversary by bringing MRL into use as ‘a social space’, and as an opportunity to ‘celebrate our shared history, the value of community and cultural diversity in creating a legacy for generations to come.’ A feasibility study has been undertaken  the SLNA committee has met with Ben Hunt (Heavitree Parklife) who is leading the study and made very good suggestions as to how the land facilities might be used and laid out. The Deaf Academy have issued a press release which is published here below and which has been sent to other publications, it all seems very good news, I thank them for it and look forward to working with them to transform MRL from a locked up space with potential to an open space available for use by the deaf community and the community of St Leonards.
Sylvan Dewing , the head of the Deaf Academy, addressed our AGM in 2024 and answered questions from some of the members of the community.
A Pre-application of a prospective idea has been made to Exeter City Council's Planning Department but it is confidential at the moment. 20/1/25


PRESS RELEASE BY DEAF ACADEMY - Feasibility Study Launched for Mount Radford Lawn in Exeter
April 2025 Update:

Following the Feasibility Study commissioned by Trustees in 2024, the Trustee Board agreed to submit a pre-planning application to Exeter City Council to further explore the viability of developing Mount Radford Lawn. The Deaf Academy attended a pre-application scoping meeting on 12th March 2025 with planning officials from Exeter City Council. Representative from St Leonards Neighbourhood Association and Parklife also attended this scoping meeting.
The meeting was positive and the next phase will be to submit the pre-application. Once the response from this is received from Exeter City Council, it will go back to the charity’s Board of Trustees for further consideration.

The website for information is:-
www.thedeafacademy.ac.uk/mount-radford-lawn/.
This web page serves as a public timeline and will be kept updated at each stage in this project’s progress.






Mobirise

28/2/24
Weirfield Road - a sorry tale of careless planning permissions.

The proposal to make the site access of a new Residential Home and a new Care home onto Weirfield Road was passed with little thought to the practicality, safety, historic road closures, Dept of Health Regulations and residents' needs.  The argument against this, made to ECC by the SLNA and very strongly by the residents of Weirfield Rd and others is why should developers be allowed to use the public highway as their driveway, they should create access directly onto the main Topsham Road.
Another point which seems to be being ignored is that The Department Of Health recommends that healthcare premises have two vehicular accesses for safety reasons. Should a fire occur or other incident requiring emergency vehicles to access the site and one vehicle access was disabled then there would be another.

After an appeal and many complaints a Planning Dept. decision has been made to allow a Residential home with access (shared with the Care Home ) off Weirfield Road, even though this could result in emergency vehicle, or any vehicle access being blocked more often than it would be if the access was directly onto Topsham Rd. No requirement has been placed on the developers to add a second access from Topsham Road. A great mistake and we hope it doesn't result in a medical emergency not being able to be served quickly enough. If people are hurt or lives are lost because of carelessly given planning permissions, then the authorities will be answerable.

Mobirise

Devon County Council selling off under-used assets - County Hall grounds could be in danger.

Matford Lane DCC sale - land between The Coaver Club & Matford Lane
“Notice is hereby given that Devon County Council intends to dispose of an area of approximately 0.6 hectares of land known as land and buildings at the Matford Offices Site, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter, Devon EX2 4QD, part of which is considered to be open space land.”
Thus started an announcement by DCC early in 2024. This, of course alerted many residents of St Leonards specially those living around County Hall grounds. To cut a long story short the state of the situation at January 2025 is this. 
In September 2024 the SLNA asked ECC to designate the grounds of County Hall (less where the Matford Huts once stood) as a 'Local Green Space' in the new Local Plan, this would give an extra layer of protection above the existing 'Amenity Space', 'Conservation Area' and 'Playing Pitch' for the cricket square. ECC dithered for several weeks then said there was not enough time before the deadline for the next of the plan.
The Exeter Housing & Economic Land Availability Assessment document produced by DCC in Nov 2024 confirms that this site is not a brownfield, but a greenfield site:
Site description: “Site occupied, until relatively recently and for a period of around forty years, by buildings in office use. The planning consent for the offices was on a temporary basis and conditioned to return to grass, so the site is technically greenfield. “
 Representations about the Local Plan have been made to the Planning Inspectorate. The expected date for a reaction from them is June 2025. A LINK to what we have said is here
A survey of St Leonards residents' opinions on their use of  County Hall Grounds has returned more than 900 responses. A LINK TO IT IS HERE.

The other money raising-action being taken by DCC is the sale of Larkbeare House. See separate news item in this website.

Mobirise

Larkbeare House

Listing application to protect its future.

The current Larkbeare House, built in a different location to the previous house, was constructed on the present site in on Topsham Road in about 1862 for Charles Bowring's grandson, John Charles Bowring.
The Exeter Civic Society, supported by the SLNA and others applied to have the House and grounds listed in order to protect them from wrongful development. The Dept of Culture Media and Sport  has decided that the gardens should be listed, but that the garden steps, the summerhouse and main house should not. The garden listing decision stated:-
"Agreed. This mid-C19 garden retains a range of designed elements and is attributed to James Veitch senior, a horticulturist of national repute. It is also associated with noted C19 amateur botanist John Bowring. The loss of structural components is regrettable but much of the layout remains in the form as shown on a later C19 plan. The garden has the degree of interest required for registration.
13 June 2024"
A buyer came forward in February 2024, but has pulled out of the purchase. Rumour has it that the purchaser couldn't wait for a decision to be made on the listing process.
The Estate Agent's sign now (17/6/25) says 'Under Offer'.



An historic background to the house can be found here.

Mobirise

St Luke's Campus redevelopment.


St Lukes campus redevelopment plans for Medical School buildings. Info & Consultation links.
St Luke’s Campus is included in The Exeter Plan Full Draft Regulation 18 (October
2023) as a ‘New Transformational employment allocation’ (Policy EJ6):
The St Luke’s site forms part of the University of Exeter’s campus and currently provides academic, administrative, sports and social facilities for the University of Exeter. The site will require redevelopment to provide a future health campus, to consolidate health and wellbeing activities and help the University to scale up its biomedical and clinical research and associated commercialisation.
Redevelopment of the campus will also strengthen the existing research and teaching links between the University and the Royal Devon University Healthcare Trust. Proposals at St Luke’s will need to be of a high quality and appropriate in the context of the wider residential area. Proposals will need to demonstrate through the preparation of a masterplan framework regard for the environmental and heritage assets on site and in the surrounding area.
To provide feedback, please fill in a feedback
form today or via our website:
www.exeter.ac.uk/stlukesredevelopment

In the Summer of 2024, the University plans to
submit a final masterplan framework to Exeter
City Council for endorsement and to feature as
part of the new Exeter Plan.
John Vickery is the project manager.
If you have any queries about the proposal for St. Luke's Campus, please contact: campusdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk 

Display materials giving more information can be found HERE

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