PLANS to demolish Exeter's historic cricket pavilion and replace it with four blocks of student accommodation are recommended for approval when the city's planning committee meets on Monday evening.
If given the go ahead a new cricket pavilion is planned elsewhere on the site off Prince of Wales Road.
There would be a total of 159 students housed in the development which would be three to five storeys high.
The cricket club says that the current pavilion is no longer fit for purpose and has told the city council that if the proposed development does not happen, then Exeter Cricket Club will be financially unviable within three years and may well have left the County Ground
Five letters of objection have been received by the city council which has also received 50 letters of support.
Exeter St James Design Review Panel supports the principle of development on this site to secure the future of the cricket club and accepts that in order to ensure a viable development, and investment in the fabric of the cricket club, that a certain scale of development is necessary.
The panel was, however unhappy with the massing of the accommodation blocks and their concerns have been taken on board by the architects and changes made so that the central accommodation block has been made higher than that adjacent to Prince of Wales Road which has been reduced to three storeys.
