Graham Norwood Journalism

Exeter Goes To Town

Financial Times

[ « Back to more Property Articles « ]

It was a bright morning in May 2007 when it first became obvious that Exeter had changed - really changed.

Until then the city, which is the county capital of Devon in south-west England's agricultural and tourist heartland, was relatively anonymous. It was the place that outsiders visited on wet days when the rugged landscapes of nearby Dartmoor were too intimidating, or the little ports of south Devon's coast looked too sun-starved.

But Exeter changed last spring when a tented village popped up near the city's 15th century cathedral. Its temporary residents were enthusiastic buyers, mostly from the south east, willing to camp overnight to snap up £600,000 apartments in the then-unfinished Princesshay, the city's new, glamorous restaurant-and-retail scheme.

"Until that moment it was thought people who bought in Exeter were those who worked in Exeter. They were doctors and private school teachers and university lecturers - old money, if you like, which lived in Exeter moving from smaller homes to larger ones. But that day signified a departure. People from outside believed that Exeter was on the move" says Martin Lamb, head of the city's Savills estate agency.

One of those people was Chris Read.

He was born in Plymouth - Devon's other city in Devon, 40 miles further south west - but had spent 25 years working in London and Hertfordshire as an IT consultant and a property finder, helping busy clients track down homes coming to the market.

"It was a roots thing. I wanted to come back to the south west of England but I'd grown accustomed to the modernity of London and the south east. I liked being able to buy a cappuccino and see an art-house film and it wasn't until recently that I could do that in Devon. I still can't in Plymouth, but now I can in Exeter" explains Read, 40.

His move from Chorley Wood to Exeter in spring last year saw him shift career too. He became an estate agent at the city's office of Stags, which has branches across the south west of England.

"Now I can walk from work to home, and within 15 minutes drive to a beach or stroll to a cinema. Exeter has developed the advantages of a big city while staying small. It's got the wealth of the south east with the beauty of the south west" he gloats.

This appears an overnight transformation for the city but in reality it has taken years.

It is inextricably linked to telecommunications and transport revolutions which over the past decade have meant people who used to regard the south west as a favourite place for holiday homes can now relocate there permanently.

Newly-improved M5 and A30 road routes make Bristol accessible in an hour; London and the industrial heartland of the Midlands take little over three hours. Some rail services to London take only 140 minutes while Exeter airport, little more than a grass field in the early 1990s, is now the hub for low-cost carrier Flybe, providing over 1,000 jobs and offering scheduled flights to over 20 countries including Canada.

These infrastructure developments have led to other dramatic changes, too.

Exeter University has been named University of the Year 2007/8 by the Times Higher Education Supplement and its student population has risen from 11,000 to 13,400 in five years. Airport passenger levels have soared from 322,000 in 2001/2 to over 997,000 in 2007/8. The re-location of the 1,000-employee UK Meteorological Office from Bracknell near London to Exeter in 2004 has been followed with moves to the city by EDF Energy, British Telecom, Friends Provident and other firms.

The icing on the cake has been the opening of Princesshay, a £230m retail and residential centre built by Land Securities and boasting 500,000 square feet of shops - including the largest Fat Face clothing store in Europe and one of only seven Apple outlets in the UK - plus cafes, restaurants and 123 uber-modern 'city living' flats.

"We've tried to attract a wide spectrum of retailers currently not available anywhere else in the south west" explains John Grimes, retail leasing chief of Land Securities. With 95% of the available space let when the centre opened, it was the firm's most successful-ever retail launch.

The result of these changes on the city's confidence has been almost tangible.

Now there is a café culture with many more outlets selling lattes than those selling pasties, the traditional west-country fare for centuries. There is a cosmopolitan feel to the city centre and an apparent affluence too. East European accents abound as Poles and Latvians staff bars and restaurants; the city now has six entries in the Good Food Guide; boutique hotels like the Abode and Barcelona are popping up.

And what effect has all this had on the residential property market?

Martin Lamb, head of the Savills agency in the city and a local agent for 30 years, points a finger to the sky and says: "Up, up, up - and people are moving in all the time."

Tim Martin, chairman of British pub chain Wetherspoons, has relocated to the city while the Met Office moved 600 specialists to the area from Bracknell. Research by property consultancy Knight Frank says the population of the south west of England generally grew 6% in the decade to 2005, with favoured locations like Exeter rising still more; it predicts even higher growth levels still in the next 10 years.

Prices have risen as a result. Data from Exeter council shows that within the city's commuter belt, average house prices are now £239,000 - over 11 times the average salary.

"Exeter's become fashionable for the first time. Families who relocate and buy here usually want large houses in areas like St Leonards [a cluster of streets with terraces of four and five storey Georgian mansions] and Pennsylvania" says Martin Lamb.

There are unspoilt historic parts of the city, too, untouched by the changes except for rising prices. The oldest area is Topsham, on Exeter's eastern fringe, where grand 17th-century mansion houses on The Strand overlook the estuary. Their Dutch gables, and names like William of Orange, give away the port's early trading history.

Sir Trevor MacDonald owns a flat there, actor Bob Hoskins visits, the former BBC royal correspondent Jenny Bond is a regular at the second-hand book shop, and a some cast members of Radio 4's The Archers stay at The Globe, a 17th-century inn, when they do a BBC publicity turn at the Devon County Show each spring.

But period gems like Topsham, once typifying what people expected to buy in Exeter, now have to compete for purchasers' attention with modern city schemes like Zenith.

This is a development near the city centre and consisting of highly contemporary townhouses with solid oak floors, home offices, 40-foot long kitchens, open plan interiors and roof terraces. Despite price tags of £675,000 or £350 per square foot - a residential record for the city - the six homes in the scheme sold out rapidly over Christmas.

"Exeter's ready for this type of scheme because of the inward migration from the rest of the UK" explains local developer Robert Salisbury, the man behind Zenith. He says: "Half the homes went to locals, half to outsiders moving from the south east for lifestyle reasons but wanting the design standards they've become accustomed to."

Now a larger and even trendier developer, the legendary Urban Splash - creator of homes in disused industrial buildings in the Midlands and the north of England - have snapped up an old office block in the centre of Exeter. The firm promises that by 2010 it will produce homes within the block that set a new high in design quality, modernity and (market conditions permitting) price, too.

Exeter's revolution is therefore set to continue.

So far the city has successfully walked a tightrope. It has grown as a cosmopolitan urban base but it has kept its easy access to more traditional west-country living, like the surrounding lush green fields and quiet coastal towns a short drive away.

But will Devon one day become more famous for its comfortable city living than its rural heritage? Forget the cream tea... will you pass the macchiato, please?

[ « Back to more Property Articles « ]