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  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. Read the representations below.
A survey of St Leonards residents' opinions on their use of  County Hall Grounds has returned more than 900 responses. 

All the above is then connected with Exeter City Council's drawing up of a Local Plan.

County Hall Grounds.

There was a big local flurry of worry at the end of December because Devon County Council re-published a notice giving notice that they intended to ‘dispose’ of an area of 0.6 hectares of land where once stood the Matford Huts Offices and that objections were welcome. These objections had to be made in writing, not by email, to Legal Services at County Hall by the 19th December, that left a very short time frame to object.

On behalf of the SLNA I wrote to object on the following grounds:-

  • The Local Plan being drawn up by Exeter City Council has not yet been finalised. Representations we and others have made have not been considered, we are told they will be in the Spring of 2026. Both of our representations concerned the way ECC had dealt with this piece of land when drawing up the Local Plan. DCC is required to get the ‘correct’ price when disposing of any assets it holds and that ‘correct’ price will be fixed after professional valuation. How can such a valuation be made when the future permitted use of the land is uncertain?
  • Breaking up the grounds of County Hall by the piecemeal selling of parts of it will destroy this locally listed heritage asset.
  • Local government reorganisation is creating an uncertain future for the use of County Hall, to cat now would be foolish.

It should be noted that this is not an application to build or develop in any way, this is just a notice of their intention to sell the land.

Representations have also been made to the National Planning Inspectorate over these matters (along with about 900 representations on other matters from organisations all over Exeter) and these will be considered in the Spring of 2026.