Proposals to create a community space are very welcome

IT has taken a while, but we welcome proposals to create an open space for the community to enjoy in St Leonard’s.

After plans to build a handful of “executive” homes on Exeter’s Mount Radford Lawn were refused, locals may now get what they always hoped for.

The Deaf Academy, which owns the site, announced last week it had instigated a comprehensive feasibility study to potentially transform the field into a “multi-functioning, multi-use space that meets the needs of the wide-ranging community”.

It has commissioned an independent professional, who helped establish the successful Park Life community space in Heavitree Pleasure Ground, to liaise with stakeholders.

The school relocated from Exeter to Exmouth in 2020 and had initially hoped the sale of the site for housing would help fund that move.

However, it is now looking to achieve something different, with the housing plans going nowhere.

Principal Sylvan Dewing said: “We are now researching how we could create both a permanent legacy as a longstanding provider of deaf education, as well as an attractive, vibrant and sustainable community space.”

That has been welcomed by locals who put forward alternative plans for the site in 2019 when the housing proposals surfaced.

They argued that although the land has been owned by the school, it has also been used for community and sporting events.

Councillor Matthew Vizard said when the planning application was refused in 2019: “Mount Radford Lawn is not just some scrap of land. It is a cherished local amenity and it provides a green buffer between the local area and the congested artery that is Topsham Road.

“I played football on Saturday mornings on Mount Radford Lawn as a kid. I want other children to have that opportunity again and to preserve this space for generations to come.”

Nigel Fitzhugh, chairman of St Leonard’s Neighbourhood Association, said: “It seems a long time that we and the community of St Leonard’s have been making every effort to protect it as the playing field that it was always intended to be since the Deaf and Dumb Institution bought it in 1910.

“We are not feeling triumphant; we are feeling grateful to (the academy) and we are looking forward to working with it and others to put its aspirations into reality. It sounds very exciting to be involved in creating this multifunctioning, multi-use space.”

The feasibility study will take place over the next month or so, with a feasibility report to be produced in June with recommendations for the future of Mount Radford Lawn.

We hope the outcome will achieve the community space locals have always desired, and also provide a fitting legacy to mark the academy’s bicentennial celebrations in 202.