New Pinhoe homes approved

Traffic worries over-ruled

Forty new ‘zero carbon’ homes on the edge of Exeter are on the way, despite worries about traffic chaos in Pinhoe.

Verto Homes’ scheme for land between Pulling Road and Church Hill has been approved by Exeter City Council’s planning committee. They'd deferred making a decision before because of concerns about adding more homes and cars in the area, and also that only 15 per cent of the homes, rather than 35 per cent as in the planning policy, would be affordable.

The developer increased affordable homes from six to 10, although the 25 per cent proposed is still short of policy requirements. Planning officers agreed though that 35 per cent affordable homes would not be viable.

Councillors gave the go ahead by nine votes to three, with one abstention, despite the worries. Pinhoe councillor Trish Oliver said: “I welcome a zero carbon development but not in Pinhoe. We suffer from increasing traffic congestion and decreasing air quality and this will be exacerbated by all the other developments.” She called for the number of parking spaces to be reduced and the affordable housing numbers to rise to 30 per cent.

Fellow ward member Cllr Duncan Wood added: “This is a very interesting development and in an appropriate location I would support it, but this in the wrong location. It will increase traffic flow that is already at capacity. This seems to be a development to be achieved at any cost, irrespective to whether it can be safely accessed or the traffic can be absorbed on a network already beyond capacity.”

But Devon County Council’s highway department raised no objection to the plans, much to confusion and surprise of the committee. Exeter City Council leader Phil Bialyk said: “I don’t think it is satisfactory in my view, and it will increase traffic quite a lot. I don’t get how highways have reached the decision that it is ok.”

But Cllr Rachel Sutton said that while the committee may not like and may disagree with the highways advice, there aren’t any reasons that they could refuse the scheme on those grounds. She added: “Building around the edge of communities will always will be unpopular. As cities expand, people on the edge don’t like it, even though their homes were probably objected to by the people who lived two fields before them.

“There is a lot to like about this. The quality of the houses is commendable and I like zero carbon homes as that is what we need. This is finely balanced but I am broadly in favour.”

Calling for the plans to be approved, Darren Summerfield, co-founder of Verto Homes, added: “We have made a significant number of concessions and will be accepting a reduced profit but this shows the desire to deliver zero carbon homes. This will provide both open market and affordable homes and help meet the council’s carbon neutral aims.”