Land Securities’ Princesshay scheme in Exeter faces a third round of scrutiny by the planners on Monday.
The £135m, 530,000 sq ft city-centre redevelopment was modified in February 2000 to avoid going to public inquiry. It had been called in by the DTLR. The first application was altered the year before, after fierce criticism from English Heritage and local community groups.
LandSec’s development director for the retail and residential scheme, Mike McGuinness, said: “We collectively feel we have a better product this time. We have changed the orientation of a major department store from south to north of Bedford Street and brought the project forward two and a half years.”
One of the complaints against the previous application was the six-and-a-half-year construction “blitz” that would have been inflicted on the city centre by having to move utilities infrastructure to site the department store.
McGuinness claimed to be confident of success this time because of LandSec’s regular consultation “workshops” with English Heritage, CABE, the business community and local pressure groups. The original architect has been replaced by a team of three others: Chapman Taylor, Panter Hudspith and Wilkinson Eyre.
Chris Smith, assistant director for EH South West, said: “We have engaged in intensive intermediate negotiations with the developer and, in light of this new process, have very high hopes for a much improved submission.”
