1. About the Exeter Plan
The Exeter Plan will shape the future of Exeter for the next twenty years and will be the basis for how the city continues to evolve and meet the needs of the community.
The Exeter Plan is the name for Exeter's new Local Plan. It will be the main planning policy document for Exeter, setting out where development should take place and providing the policies which will be used in making decisions on planning applications. Once adopted, it will replace the current planning policies in the Core Strategy and the Local Plan First Review.
The City Council submitted the Exeter Plan to the Planning Inspectorate on 26 September 2025 for examination. The latest information on the examination of the Exeter Plan is available on the Exeter Plan Submission and Examination webpage.
The Local Plan dataset and the Plan Timetable dataset are available to download.
The data is provided under the Open Government Licence.
How have we got here?
Since work started on a new plan in 2020, four consultations have helped form the Exeter Plan.
An Issues Consultation in autumn 2021 sought views on the key issues for the plan to address and started to look at what the pattern of development in the city might look like in future.
Responses to the Issues Consultation helped inform the Outline Draft Exeter Plan which was consulted on in autumn 2022.
Feedback from the Outline Draft Exeter Plan then helped shape the Full Draft Exeter Plan which was consulted on in autumn 2023.
The responses to the Full Draft Exeter Plan helped produce the final draft version, the Publication Draft Exeter Plan, which the City Council consulted on in winter 2024/25.
Throughout this time, the Council has built up a detailed evidence base of specialist studies which underpin the Exeter Plan.