Plans for the new office complex, in Honiton’s Heathpark area, show EDDC’s aims to build a new building of approximately 2,600sqm.

The vision for East Devon District Council’s (EDDC) new headquarters in Honiton has been revealed in papers submitted by the authority.

According to EDDC’s planning application, submitted at the beginning of this month, it intends to create a ‘modern, more modestly scaled, attractive, efficient, principally open-plan office space’ with ‘functionality and flexibility for the future’. Plans for the new office complex, in Honiton’s Heathpark area, show EDDC’s aims to build a new building of approximately 2,600sqm, complete with an ancillary outbuilding for a cycle store and smoking shelter.

The designs also allow for a staff car park and loading bay, with a provision for 135 car parking spaces, including seven for disabled visitors, and a pedestrian and cycle route from Exeter Road to Heathpark Industrial Park.

As well as providing three floors of offices, the new building will comprise a public chamber, public and officer meeting areas, meeting and member rooms, and welfare facilities for staff.

EDDC’s application states: “The vision for the service delivery is that the public will be able to do business with the council when, where and how residents want to.

“The council will operate from offices in Honiton and Exmouth and continue to have a presence in main towns through surgeries.”

The report says that EDDC first considered a move from Knowle, its current headquarters in Sidmouth, in 2008, and that the Knowle buildings are ‘no longer fit for purpose’ for an authority which faces ‘higher service expectations, funding cuts, frozen council tax and rising overheads’.

In the report, EDDC said the building has been built with a ‘modern, contemporary approach’, and added that as the building is the ‘focal point’ for the authority, it is necessary to elevate the architecture of the building to ‘reflect the authority’s status’.

The application will now go through the usual planning procedures, before being considered by EDDC’s development management committee.