Leaders Column - Exeter is recognised as one of best locations in UK

Published: 27 January 2022

I want to start by congratulating our Chief Executive and Growth Director Karime Hassan on his MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List.

It is great recognition for Karime and his family, and great recognition for the work he has done for this city, in making it the place it is today. The honour is well deserved.

Read more: Council Chief Executive Karime Hassan awarded MBE in New Year honours

Talking of successes, it was fantastic for Exeter to be recognised in a national survey as being the second cleanest city in the country, and the second highest ranked location for having pride in its neighbourhoods.

The survey considered a number of factors, including interest in recycling, best parks and green spaces, tidiness and cleanliness.

This is really great news. We work hard to keep our city looking its best and this success is down to the hard work of our staff who work tirelessly every day to keep Exeter looking great. I want to thank all of them for what they do.

Read more: Exeter named UK's second cleanest and proudest city

We have been consulting on the Local Plan and this work is continuing. We have set out our plans to protect the green spaces surrounding the city. These spaces are so important to Exeter. We don’t want urban sprawl - we want sustainable living in the city. 

At the heart of this is our vision for Liveable Exeter, our ambition for 12,000 sustainable homes in the city over the next 20 years, and we remain on track with planning for the delivery of the programme, together with our partners in the city.

Importantly, the Local Plan will need to see the delivery of new homes built to a net zero carbon standard. At the moment we have no powers to tell developers that they must build homes to this standard, and this is something that we want to address.

There will be lots of opportunity for the public to give their views in the months ahead and we want to hear from as many people as possible on how they would like to see their city develop in the future, and what is important to them.

We are planning to form a Council-owned residential property company which will help to assist people who don’t qualify for Council housing. It will help those who cannot afford a deposit to buy a house, and who want to live in good accommodation, with a good landlord, a secure tenancy, and with sensible rents which reflect the area.

In February I will be presenting a balanced budget to Council. We still have to make savings over the next three years and we are looking at making changes to the way we operate to keep within cost budget.

Our key focus as ever will be on providing excellent frontline services, although it is becoming increasingly difficult to do this year on year with an ever decreasing balance. Council tax payers will see an increase of 10 pence a week for a Band D property for the services the City Council provides.

This week we are hosting an important summit on issues involving the city centre, covering things like street attachment and anti-social behaviour, with the intention of creating a safer city centre for everyone.

We are bringing agencies and interested parties together, to ensure everyone can share in the success of the city, and everyone can feel safe in the city centre. By bringing together all the agencies and organisations involved we will be best placed to discuss these issues in detail and take action where it is needed. 

I’m pleased to see the city centre continuing to recover well, with good footfall returning to the city. We hope people come back to the city centre to shop and meet friends, while staying safe. We all need to continue taking care of each other and think about others. Let’s enjoy the fact that things are getting better - but the only way to beat Covid is for everyone to continue to be careful.

We are of course all looking forward to the opening of our new leisure centre St Sidwell’s Point in the spring. It really is looking fantastic inside as the finishing touches near completion and I can’t wait to see this amazing facility open to the public. It will be a major asset to Exeter, one we can all be very proud of.