‘Greedy scheme takes advantage of postcode’

walking, football and rugby and there are so few businesses in Exwick with toilets available.

Public toilets are a piece of infrastructure that help encourage people to visit different parts of Exeter and a necessity for the elderly, disabled and the homeless. The city council closed them in 2019, claiming it couldn’t afford to keep them open and citing problems with drugs.

This is a real issue in Exeter but it’s a problem that can be mitigated with needle bins, CCTV outside the toilets and ensuring addicts get the right support.

As for a lack of funds, the administration has absolutely no right to cry poverty when it’s wasting taxpayers’ money on massive vanity projects. Basic services for local people should come first and I would clean the public toilets myself to ensure they reopened.

Frankie Rufolo, independent candidate for Exwick By email

Anne Marie Morris, MP for Newton Abbot, writes about the Chancellor having ‘done well’ in cutting National Insurance contributions and putting £900 in the pocket of the average worker (The good and bad in Budget, March 28). Let’s hope this ‘average worker’ does not get toothache. If he needs a couple of fillings he won’t have much change from his £900. If he needs medical treatment quickly for a shoulder he injured he will soon have thousands of pounds of bills to pay.

Anne Marie Morris hopes for further tax cuts. Maybe she doesn’t travel much. If she did she would immediately notice that roads all over Devon are pitted with dangerous potholes. Perhaps I should explain to her that these potholes are the result of underfunding by central government. ✒ I SEE from the Express & Echo (Detailed application goes in for 100 homes after appeal, April 4) that the Planning Inspectorate has once again overturned Exeter City Council’s refusal to allow Taylor Wimpey to build 100 houses on Clyst Road, Topsham.

In mitigation, the developer promises ‘high quality’ building design, a play area for children, 35 ‘affordable’ houses and lots of car parking. It also suggests, unaccountably, that the scheme will benefit the locals.

In fact, of course, this is yet another greedy scheme designed to take advantage of the prestigious Topsham postcode. The ‘Topsham Gap,’ a greenfield strip which was formerly protected and was designed to separate the town from Exeter, has long since been filled with houses.

The proposed site is bounded on one side by the railway, so the only access is via Clyst Road, a narrow lane, which is a route to the M5 junction: it has no pavement for much of its length, and is currently almost unusable owing to increased traffic from previous developments.

Topsham and its support services are already having difficulty coping with the hugely increased population on its fringes: this latest development can only make things worse. Thank you, Planning Inspectorate!

Incidentally, I see from the same issue of your paper that homes in the county are less affordable than the national average: so who is going to live in all these new Taylor Wimpey houses?

Jennifer Pearson

Topsham