Unrecorded WW2 bombs may lie buried under city

EXPERTS believe Exeter took more of a battering from the Luftwaffe during the Second World War than the history books report.

- GUY HENDERSON Local Democracy Reporter

A detailed risk assessment was carried out across the Exeter University campus in 2021 as part of a planning application involving new student accommodation.

The document has now resurfaced as a result of an application from the university to the city council to change the details of a project to demolish dozens of buildings on the Streatham campus to make way for more than 2,000 new student bed-spaces in blocks up to nine storeys high.

The risk assessment, by Kent-based specialist firm Brimstone Site Investigation, found that unexploded wartime bombs might still be hidden on the redevelopment site.

In March 2021, a 1,000kg German wartime bomb was found by builders on land next to the Streatham campus. It was later detonated by a bomb disposal team in an explosion heard up to five miles away. A number of homes were damaged.