Our Story

Exeter’s City Futures’ Journey

Here we have put together a timeline that traces Exeter City Futures journey from idea, to launch, to current day.

2014

September 2014

Glenn Woodcock, a Director of Oxygen House (formerly Andromeda Capital) seeks a meeting with Karime Hassan, CEO of Exeter City Council, to discuss ways he can contribute to accelerating Exeter’s move towards achieving a truly zero-carbon city.

17 October 2014

Glenn Woodcock meets Karime Hassan and discusses ideas around a low-carbon agenda for Exeter and how data and analytics can be used to stimulate change.

2015

13 July 2015

Innovate UK launch Internet of Things Demonstrator competition, offering an opportunity for Exeter City Council and Oxygen House to work together on a tangible project to use data to solve city-wide challenges of congestion and energy use.

15 September 2015

A report is submitted to Exeter City Council’s Executive Committee to provide an overview of the Internet of Things Demonstrator bid and initial plans for the concept of Exeter City Futures – a Community Interest Company to be wholly owned by the city of Exeter – to manage the delivery of the IoT programme and ensure city-wide engagement around the future vision for Exeter.

Exeter City Council’s Executive Committee endorse Exeter City Futures as a mechanism for better understanding and addressing the transportation, energy and health challenges and opportunities facing Exeter.

23 September 2015

Exeter submits joint application to Innovate UK Internet of Things Demonstrator competition.

26 November 2015

Exeter City Futures Community Interest Company is incorporated with the purpose of promoting and working towards the decarbonisation of the city of Exeter, and find solutions to the key challenges of health, transport and energy.

See our articles of association on Companies House.

3 December 2015

Manchester is announced as Innovate UK’s Internet of Things (IoT) City Demonstrator and awarded £10M. Oxygen House decide to move forward anyway and invest in the establishment of Exeter City Futures using the funds they had already committed to supporting the joint Exeter IoT bid and begin working collaboratively to tackle the city’s key challenges of congestion and energy.

2016

27 January 2016

Exeter City Futures (ECF) launch publicly with the mission of making Exeter ‘congestion free and energy independent by 2025’.

February 2016

Oxygen House start to recruit a team to lead Exeter City Futures’ consultation and engagement work with residents and businesses to define the goals of the city and to design the long-term operational model for the organisation.

9 February 2016

Exeter City Council seeks approval from their Executive Committee to become a member of Exeter City Futures Community Interest Company (ECF CIC) to support the delivery of the ECF vision. The city council agree to the allocation of a one-off payment of £50,000 as a working budget to facilitate the start-up and promotion of the ECF programme.

> See city council report setting out rationale for recommendation
> See city council’s final decision

9 May 2016

Exeter City Council officially joins ECF CIC and appoints Cllr Rosie Denham as Member Director. Cllr Rosie Denham was allocated the city transformation portfolio to recognise the priority attached to Exeter City Futures.

May 2016 – April 2018

Oxygen House covers the costs of a team to deliver the Exeter City Futures engagement programme to understand and define the mission of congestion free and energy independence, and to test various delivery models and structures for driving change.

Exeter City Council support Exeter City Futures through allocation of resources for marketing and engagement with the city. Funding from Exeter City Council enables licences to be purchased for pilots of the Spacehive crowdfunding platform and the Exeter Data Mill (DataPress platform).

2017

May 2017

Oxygen House recognise that there is potential to support this type of transformational change across other national and global cities. As a result, Global City Futures is incorporated as a consultancy organisation and the ECF team is transferred from Oxygen House payroll, to Global City Futures payroll – Global City Futures continue to cover the delivery costs of ECF CIC.

17 November 2017

Exeter City Council launch the Exeter Data Mill, an open data platform developed in collaboration with Exeter City Futures. For Exeter City Council the intention is to make the city’s data more accessible to all. For Exeter City Futures it also enables tracking and measuring of progress against its mission.

2018

January 2018

The Environmental Futures & Big Data Impact Lab receives funding from the European Regional Development Fund. The objective of the Impact Lab is to stimulate inward investment and productivity-led growth by positioning The Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership (HotSW LEP) as a national and international centre for environmental / big data analytics.

This £6.4m project is being delivered by seven partner organisations: University of Exeter, Plymouth University, the Met Office, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Rothamsted Research, Plymouth College of Art and Exeter City Futures. The initial project will run for three years from January 2018.

This project provides funding for ECF’s Data Analyst to develop a city data platform (Exeter Data Mill) that opens up data for everyone in the city, can be used to analyse city challenges, and enables entrepreneurs to access data to build new services.

April 2018

Exeter City Council make changes at senior management level to support the delivery of the council’s priorities. Exeter City Council appoint an ECF Programme Director. The operational costs of Exeter City Futures continue to be underwritten by Global City Futures.

The role of the ECF Programme Director is to further define the mission of congestion free and energy independent and, through extensive review with stakeholders, develop a final operational model for ECF CIC and recruit other key public sector institutions to the Board of Exeter City Futures (University of Exeter, Devon County Council, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Trust Foundation Trust and Exeter College).

13 September 2018

Exeter City Futures launched in 2015 with a bold ambition to make Exeter ‘energy independent and congestion free’. We were asked important questions along the way around what ‘energy independent and congestion free’ means and how it can be measured. Exeter City Futures responded to this by setting 12 Goals for Exeter, to replace the ‘congestion free and energy independent’ mission tagline. These goals reflect the priorities of the people with whom we engaged with since launching.

Exeter City Futures and the 12 Goals for Exeter were presented to Exeter City Council’s Place Scrutiny Committee. The Place Scrutiny Committee supported the direction of Exeter City Futures and noted the 12 Goals as a way to deliver against the city council’s strategic objective of reducing congestion in Exeter.

1 October 2018

Exeter City Council Launch their 2018-2021 Corporate Plan, formally citing Exeter City Futures CIC as the mechanism through which they will address their strategic priority of tackling congestion and accessibility.

2019

January 2019

Exeter College, the University of Exeter, and Devon County Council confirm membership of ECF CIC board joining existing members: Exeter City Council and Global City Futures.

View Board Minutes

15 March 2019

The Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust join as the sixth and final member of the ECF CIC board. On the same day Cllr Rachel Sutton makes a public statement at a climate strike that Exeter will be carbon-neutral by 2030.

3 May 2019

Exeter City Futures responds to this carbon neutral ambition submitting a discussion paper to Exeter City Council recommending a review of other city carbon reduction plans across the globe and making the case for Exeter City Futures to lead the creation of a roadmap to enable the delivery of Exeter’s carbon ambition.

16 May 2019

Exeter City Futures formalises its carbon reduction recommendations in a paper, entitled “Towards a Carbon-Neutral Exeter”, and is submitted to Exeter City Council’s Executive Committee.

23 July 2019

The recommendations in the “Towards a Carbon-Neutral Exeter” paper are approved by Exeter City Council’s Full Council and it is agreed that Exeter City Futures should be appointed to develop a roadmap for Exeter using the 12 Goals as a framework.

December 2019

Exeter City Futures is awarded a £250K grant from The National Lottery Community Fund’s Reaching Communities Programme. Over three years, the funding will enable Exeter City Futures to develop collaborative relationships between communities and businesses, working on a shared goal of a healthy and sustainable Exeter.

2020

April 2020

Exeter City Futures launch the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan online during the initial hit of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The document establishes a clear roadmap to carbon neutrality for Exeter, following the culmination of engagement and collaboration with Exeter’s politicians, organisations, communities and residents since ECF’s launch in 2015.

June 2020

Exeter City Futures appoints Andrew Hardwick as new Managing Director (former Regional Stores Director for Tesco), and Lynda Wookey as Director Policy, Innovation & Engagement (originally seconded to the ECF team by CIC board member University of Exeter in January 2020)

July 2020

Exeter City Council formally adopt the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan on behalf of the city of Exeter, which they commissioned and was curated on behalf of the city by Exeter City Futures.

Looking Ahead

Exeter now has a clear, detailed and compelling roadmap to carbon neutrality and we’re thrilled to see mass engagement across the city around our work and the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan.

Our key focus going forward will be to build upon all of this fantastic work and activity to date and work together with everyone in Exeter to turn the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan into collaborative, tangible action.

We have never been in a stronger position to make this happen and we’re now asking you, your organisation, your family, and your community to join us on the journey to a Net Zero Exeter.

Download the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan

Take Action