Energy plant could be built on green Exeter field

The plans have been criticised

Exeter City Council has been criticised for considering selling part of one of the city’s green spaces for an energy plant to be built.

The council’s executive committee discussed disposing of land at Grace Road Fields for a low-carbon district heat network back in July. However, as it was in part two of the meeting, the press and public were excluded.

The Exeter Civic Society said it was “appalled” councillors on the committee agreed to sell a third of the playing fields to Exeter Energy Network for an energy plant that will extract heat from the River Exe and use excess heat from the nearby incinerator as well as from a proposed data centre.

It will provide heating for commercial and domestic premises alongside the river including the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital and County Hall.

In a statement, the society said the council has a planning policy in place to prevent such a development in any of the six valley parks, unless a building enhances their use. The playing fields are designated as part of the Riverside Valley Park.

A council spokesperson said the issue would be discussed by the full council next month and residents would get to have their say if members agreed to sell land.

Society chairman Keith Lewis said: “This proposal is completely against the city council’s Local Plan policy CP16 which states that no development will be permitted in any valley park unless it enhances their use, and this proposal clearly does not.

“When the council considered this disposal, the committee paper acknowledged that the site is within the valley park, (but) it failed to reveal that the council’s own planning policies prevent developments such as this in a valley park, leaving councillors not fully briefed.

“Once green space is built on it can never be replaced within the city boundary – we are slowly building over what is left, which means the valley parks are essential.

“The society is supportive of a new low-carbon energy centre and a district heating system, but it needs to be in the right place, and the city council needs to also consider the long-term need for the valley park for existing and future residents for the development sites it has identified at Marsh Barton and Water Lane for up to 7,500 homes with an appropriate level of green space. ”

A spokesperson for the council said: “Members of the council’s executive discussed a report relating to this issue in July and the council will have the chance to discuss it at its meeting in October.

“Members of the public will be invited to comment when a public open space disposal notice is posted, and the completion of sale is subject to the granting of planning consent.

“Officers will produce a report and make a recommendation to the planning committee having carefully considered the merits of the application. ”

The Exeter Energy Network is part of a company called 1Energy, which on its website states: "Following a successful public consultation, we will be applying for planning permission for the energy centre later this year. ”

The company states Exeter Energy Network "will deliver renewable heat from a single energy centre to the buildings in and around the centre of Exeter through large underground pipes.”

It was announced in January that Exeter Energy Network had been awarded £42.5 million in Government funding to build a heat network using air-source heat pumps and the UK’s largest high-temperature water source heat pump.