Demolition of Whipton's 11-storey Rennes House started on 7 September and will take about 32 weeks. Its 61 flats are to be replaced by 36 Passivhaus homes.

Whipton’s 11-storey landmark is coming down. Exeter City Council says its contractor, DDS Group, started on site at Rennes House on Vaughan Road on Monday 7 September, and that the demolition will take about 32 weeks.

The job begins with a full internal soft strip before the building itself is “carefully dismantled”. Counted from the start date the council gave, 32 weeks runs to mid-April 2027, though it has not published a completion date.

Rennes House was built in 1968 and held 61 flats. The last residents left in November 2024.

Why it is being demolished rather than repaired

The council’s explanation rests on how the building was put together. Rennes House was constructed using Large Panel System methods, the precast concrete technique used across Britain in the 1960s, and the council says that after the building safety rules brought in following the Grenfell Tower fire, the cost of bringing it up to modern standards “was deemed financially unviable”.

That reverses an earlier decision. The council had agreed in 2018 to refurbish Rennes House. Its Executive reopened the question on 11 January 2022, and the options report members considered that day set out why. It recorded:

  • the escalated cost of carrying out the 2018 refurbishment decision
  • compliance and health and safety obligations under the then Building Safety Bill that would be “significant and challenging and potentially unachievable” with the building in its condition, or even if it were refurbished as agreed
  • that demolishing and re-providing homes would fit better with the consented Vaughan Road scheme next door and the recently built Chester Long Court

At that meeting members were told that of the 61 properties in the block, 11 were already being kept empty pending their decision, and that officers were confident of a plan to house the occupants of the other 50. (Exeter City Council Executive, 11 January 2022)

The permission has been in place for 15 months

The demolition is not a new consent. Exeter City Council applied to itself under reference 25/0118/DEM, “Demolition of Rennes House 11 Storey Block”, on 31 January 2025. It was validated on 14 February and decided on 5 June 2025, with the outcome recorded on the planning register as “Prior Approval Required and Granted”. One comment was logged on it.

So the paperwork was finished 15 months before the machinery arrived. (Exeter City Council planning register)

What goes up in its place, and what is not settled yet

The council says the cleared site will take two low-rise apartment blocks providing around 36 Passivhaus one and two-bedroom flats, designed to complement the existing Whipton Gardens development. Passivhaus is a building standard that cuts heating demand to a fraction of a conventional home’s, and Exeter has used it repeatedly for new council housing.

Two things are worth being precise about.

The replacement is 36 homes where there were 61. That is 25 fewer flats on the site, although the council has been rehousing former Rennes House tenants into new Passivhaus homes elsewhere, several of them in Whipton Gardens itself.

There is no planning application for the new blocks on the register yet. A search of Exeter’s planning portal on 13 September returned nothing for the replacement scheme at the Rennes House address. Until one is submitted and decided, the 36 flats are a stated intention rather than a consented scheme, and there is no published start date for building them.

The wider Whipton Gardens site next door is further ahead. The former Whipton Barton House development on Vaughan Road was consented under 19/1621/FUL and then varied in 2023 to reduce the scheme to 91 apartments, add communal space and extra mobility scooter stores.

Rennes House, Vaughan Road, Whipton The block that is coming down, and what the council says replaces it 1968 Built 11 Storeys 61 Flats lost 32 Weeks to clear 36 New flats planned Demolition started Monday 7 September 2026. Prior approval was granted on 5 June 2025 under reference 25/0118/DEM. No planning application for the 36 replacement flats had been submitted as at 13 September 2026. Sources: Exeter City Council, 7 September 2026; Exeter City Council planning register. Graphic by The Exeter Times

What the council says

Cllr Yvonne Atkinson, Exeter City Council’s lead councillor for housing, put it this way:

Rennes House was home to many residents over the years, but extensive investigations showed that the building had reached the end of its useful life, and we are now looking ahead to the future.

She said the redevelopment would provide “new Passivhaus homes that are warm, affordable to heat and environmentally sustainable”. The council says the project has funding support from the government’s Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF2). It has not published the amount.

What it means for you

If you live near Vaughan Road, this is 32 weeks of demolition next door, not a few noisy weeks. The council has said the work begins with an internal soft strip before the building is “carefully dismantled”, which is slower and quieter than the alternative, but the site will be active for most of a year.

The council has not published site working hours, lorry routes or a dust management plan alongside its announcement. If you want those, the construction conditions attached to the prior approval are on the planning register entry for 25/0118/DEM, and Exeter City Council’s environmental health team handles construction noise complaints.

Vaughan Road is not currently subject to any temporary traffic order. We check Devon County Council’s statutory notices weekly and list every Exeter closure on our roadworks and travel page, which will carry any road closure this work needs.

We will report the planning application for the replacement flats when it appears on the register.

Sources