At the DCC Cabinet meeting on March 11th, County Councillors performed a 100 U-turn. From a formal position, agreed at January 27th committee, that the land was only being sold to help County coffers, the Leader of the Council said that the land would 'given away'.  The new  theoretical goal is to build only specialist housing eg for care leavers or key workers. 

What does this mean in practice?

To achieve this, the County needs to set up a host of binding conditions to stop whoever buys the land doing anything other than what they want. They therefore deferred any decision until they get more information on this. It is not known when the information will come to Cabinet.

 Meanwhile at the public hearings into the draft Local Plan, St Leonards's Neighbourhood Association and Green Councillors Lynn Wetenhall and Diana Moore, opened a salvo about the way the site was included in the draft plan.  The Inspectors were sufficiently interested to say that they will visit the site.  The next important date is afternoon of May 14th, where the team will submit further issues to persuade the Inspectors that the site should not be allocated for housing.  Public can can come and watch - please do!

Devon's Cabinet is meeting this Wednesday  March 11th  with a report recommending sale of the Matford Huts site. The report is misleading and entirely missing out key information for Councillors. Please turn up at 10.00am at County Hall main entrance if you can, with placards etc. We hope to make a show of strength to demonstrate what locals feels about the sell-off and attract some media attention too. 

It's not too late to write  to the Cabinet expressing your views. Points you can make include:

• there is no mention of the significant heritage and conservation impacts on the grounds as a whole and on Coaver House in the report despite County officers and Historic England arguing against any development and for the benefits of regrassing the site.

• Devon County will have no control over what is done with the site once put on the market. All decisions about affordable or key worker housing will be down to Exeter City Council's planning committee

• The creation of unitary authorities for Devon means the future of the whole County Hall site, land and buildings, is uncertain. It is better to retain the site as it is rather than undertaken on partial development, which could negatively affect the overall value of the site should it have to be put on the market.

• Make any personal comments about how much you value the site etc

Here are the Cabinet's emails:  julian.brazil@devon.gov.uk

paul.arnott@devon.gov.uk

denise.bickley@devon.gov.uk

james.buczkowski@devon.gov.uk

simon.clist@devon.gov.uk

cheryl.cottle-hunkin@devon.gov.uk

 jacqi.hodgson@devon.gov.uk

richard.jefferies@devon.gov.uk

richard.keeling@devon.gov.uk

dan.thomas@devon.gov.uk

Local residents have been campaigning against this, with the support of St Leonard's Neighburhood Association and Councillors Andy Ketchin and Lynn Wetenhall.  Cllr Ketchin has already secured a 'pause' in the decision to sell taken on January 27th 2026,.  The current situation is that Devon County Council's Cabinet will revisit that decision at their meeting on March 12. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1.  Come along to a community 'photoshoot' this Saturday Feburary 28th 4.00pm. Informnation here https://fb.me/e/4iEGkvLLY.  Meet in the car park of Coaver Club.  What3Words location: https://w3w.co/link.served.empty 

2. . Gather at County Hall before  the meeting of Devon County Council's Cabinet, when they meet to decide on whether to sell this land.  March 11th, gather from 9.30am with placards if possible. NB Previous date wrongly given as march 12

This site has been created by local people who want to save County Hall's wonderful green spaces from damaging development.  Devon County Council want to sell-off a piece of the green space for open market development and we think this is wrong - for many reasons. The site  in question is right by Coaver House, where the old Matford Hut offices used to be. 

180  residents submitted written letters objecting to the sell off (emails were not allowed), which gives you an idea of the strength of local feeling. 

The old Matford Huts site has been designated as a brownfield site in the draft Exeter Local Plan, with the agreement of both Devon County and Exeter City Councils.  This designation is not decided until the draft Local Plan goes through its final stages over this spring and early summer. The picture shows the planned development- a 3 storey block of flats.

Residents are campaigning to get the site designated as green space, not a brownfield site.