AS three architects based in Crediton, we feel strongly that Mid Devon District Council’s proposal to put 257 houses on the Pedlarspool (Creedy Bridge/Libbets Grange) site will be a disaster on many levels.

All of us have worked on hundreds of projects in the district during the past 45 years and between us we have been awarded five Devon Conservation Forum Awards for House Design (both new and listed properties); consequently, we feel qualified to express our reservations about Mid Devon’s proposals.

Over the years, we have observed all the new estate housing erected in Crediton since the mid 70s.

Whilst most of these projects are fairly standard solutions, they have been well-built and now, with landscaping, they have matured well.

These older estates are physically embedded within the town and they enjoy easy walking access to High Street shops and Crediton’s amenities.

This has always – for good reasons – been accepted planning strategy for any new estate housing.

The proposed Pedlarspool estate is an “island” development, not close enough to Crediton and way too far from the village of Sandford (in which parish the estate would geographically lie).

It is isolated, with no services or even a shop. In effect, it would be a new small village without a heart, stranded in what is currently beautiful open countryside.

Each week, all shopping from this new estate would involve hundreds of vehicle movements, often through existing narrow lanes, either by residents’ cars or numerous home delivery vans. The impact of these journeys on the town’s already overstretched parking would be considerable.

The stone-walled lanes surrounding the Pedlarspool site currently lead townspeople very quickly into the countryside.

Walkers and cyclists can be surrounded by fields only 10 minutes from the town.

We are being asked to lose yet more of our town’s precious “soft” edge and have it replaced by a dense estate of the sort of anonymous housing that could be seen anywhere in the UK.

It is worth a brief consideration of the town’s most recently built estate which occupies a very prominent position on entering the town along the road from Exeter.

It is difficult to find people who find the visual impact of these dwellings exciting or innovative.

It is hard to imagine the developers spent much of their budget researching alternative schemes or using an architect with proven experience of innovative estate design.

Such prominent sites deserve every bit of design experience and as much nurture as adaptations to a listed building, since they will be the town’s future heritage.

Crediton is a thriving town, valued by its community.

It deserves the kind of imaginative design evident, for example, in our now highly appreciated Town Square whose diverse use has done so much to keep up the community’s spirits during the lockdowns.

There is no regional context or architectural invention in the Pedlarspool proposal; it is all so predictable.

One of us asked a planning officer at Mid Devon a few years ago what he thought of the actual design of the proposed new estate. His answer was – and we quote verbatim – “Between you and me, it’s pretty poor...BUT it’s not quite poor enough for us to refuse...”

It’s time to raise the bar – off the ground – surely?

If and when a developer were brave enough to give us a proposal which is distinctive, worthy of admiration and which balanced the older buildings within the centre of Crediton, such visionary thinking would surely be welcomed by our community.

Since numbers and profit drive projects, our experience suggests that such a developer might even find that inventive planning – as opposed to the tediously underwhelming estate architecture of the current project – might well yield larger financial rewards.

David Treadaway RIBA

Edward Holden. RIBA

Rob Rickie. M.Arch MSc.

Crediton