Extract from CPRE December newsletter:

As we head into the festive season, a spectre has risen Jacob Marley-like, clanking its chains. The Greater Exeter Strategic Plan, whose obituary was published as recently as 30 October, seems to have leapt straight back out of its grave.

GESP was an ambitious plan for the zone around Exeter including East Devon, Mid Devon and Teignbridge, which was declared technically dead when East Devon pulled out. But now we hear news of three new ‘towns’: 8,000 houses just east of Exeter (East Devon), another 1,000 in Alphington/Marsh Barton (Teignbridge) and 1,100 in East Cullompton as part of the planned 5,000 intended for the Culm Garden Village (Mid Devon).

We look forward to the plans to expand the networks of schools, post offices, police stations, reservoirs, GPs, dentists, pharmacists and the RD&E.

And how many of these homes will be priced for genuine local need? An important CPRE study shows that fewer than 10,000 social homes and fewer than 18,000 ‘affordables’ were built in Devon – in the last 30 years! More on this in the next Newsletter.