The construction of a 145-bed “co-living” block in Summerland Street has been postponed – along with a £200,000 Community Infrastructure Levy payment – after Exeter City Council approved an amendment to the block’s planning consent earlier this week.
The council approved the plans for the six-storey block between Verney Street and Red Lion Lane, opposite a 734-bed student accommodation block in Cheeke Street, in January last year.
The approval followed a council decision taken in private in May 2022 to restructure the leases on the land, which it owns and was occupied by businesses including Yonk Asian Foods, Sai Kung Cafe and the Boneyard retro games arcade, to enable demolition and redevelopment for “co-living”.
Developer McLaren Property, which is responsible for 34 student accommodation blocks across the UK, initially proposed a 167-bed seven-storey block before revising the plans in September 2023.
The resulting building would still stand two storeys taller than adjacent residential Wheaton House.
At the planning committee meeting which approved the plans, McLaren director Bruce Ruddle claimed the block would provide “much-needed opportunities for young professionals and key workers to live in the city” and that anything else would not make the “best use” of the site.
Council development director Ian Collinson said that the block presented “technical issues” around loss of daylight, overlooking and privacy for adjacent residents, but added that the new Exeter Local Plan, for which he is responsible, “does actually recognise that co-living does make a valuable contribution to addressing Exeter’s housing need”.
Summerland Street co-living block illustrative aerial view. Image: Stride Treglown.
However, as so often with Exeter student accommodation and “co-living” developments, construction did not begin after planning permission was granted.
A fortnight ago, one year and eight months after the council approved its plans, McLaren asked the council to make a non-material amendment to the permission to “make clear that the approved development is a phased development comprising a demolition phase, followed by a construction phase”.
The council approved the amendment on Tuesday. The reason it gave for doing so was: “For the avoidance of doubt”.
We asked the council to explain further. It said: “The need to be more explicit in the consent is considered necessary given recent case law and the different definitions of commencement of development that exist in Town and Country Planning and Community Infrastructure Levy legislation.”
Under the Town and Country Planning Act, development commences on the date on which a “material operation” takes place, which can include any material change of use of the land connected to the approved development which complies with the granted permission.
Developers can take advantage of the minimal threshold this presents to secure permanent planning consent, which is typically conditional on works starting within three years of permission being granted, whether or not they then continue with substantive construction.
This is the basis on which planning consent to redevelop a building on the corner of Fore Street and West Street, which currently still houses Rochelle’s Curtains & Blinds and Crankhouse Coffee, was secured ten years ago.
A council planning officer accepted minor preparation works for a basement bin store as sufficient to constitute commencement and the planning permission, approved in 2013, became permanent. But works still have yet to begin.
The situation at Harlequins shopping centre is similar. Planning permission to demolish and redevelop the site was first approved five years ago before a revised scheme was approved in 2021. Permission for the revisions was formally granted on 24 January 2022, giving the developers three years to start work to avoid its lapse.
On 24 January this year, exactly three years later, the developers confirmed that they had removed a tiny access ramp at the rear of the shopping centre, permanently securing consent.
Summerland Street co-living block illustrative elevation. Image: Stride Treglown.
In Summerland Street, McLaren Property is liable to pay £206,000 in Community Infrastructure Levy charges when development commences. But commencement under the Community Infrastructure Levy regulations is not the same as commencement under the Town and Country Planning Act, as the council says.
Instead, levy payment liabilities arise when notices are issued to the local planning authority, with the emphasis on procedural compliance rather then material operations taking place.
This allows levy payments to be made in phases as development come forward and specific construction milestones are reached, provided the phases are genuinely capable of being executed independently, as clarified in the High Court last year – hence the council’s case law comment.
This approach is sometimes used with large developments like new towns. It also allows developers to secure permanent planning consent by starting work on site but postponing levy payment until building begins by separating development into phases and linking Community Infrastructure Levy liability to the commencement of a later phase.
When we asked the council whether the agreed £206,000 Summerland Street levy would only become payable on commencement of the second, construction, phase it said: “We understand that is the developer’s intention”.
On this basis McLaren now has until 7 October 2027, three years from the date on which planning permission was granted, to begin demolition and so permanently secure consent for the site, but the £206,000 Community Infrastructure Levy charge only becomes due when construction begins, for which no date has been provided.
Prospective demand for Exeter student accommodation and “co-living” is in doubt, despite the council’s decision to approve a 108-bed student block in Longbrook Street last month in the face of falling university student numbers and significant higher education sector challenges.
Meanwhile, proposals to replace Clarendon House with a 297-bed student accommodation complex have been submitted to the council for approval, and an application for another 180-bed student block in Summerland Street, to replace the Unit 1 nightclub, is expected soon.
Together these would bring the number of student beds in the immediate area to 1,575 on top of the 145 “co-living” beds just up the road. But whether any of these blocks will actually be built – instead of the sites laying dormant with uplifted values following planning consent – remains to be seen.
