Here’s the view from Exmouth’s ‘Wilderness’ - the area above the church of St John-in-the-Wilderness, next to the settlement of Withycombe Barton.

Lying each side of St John’s Road, on the very edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, its farmland, woodland and hedgerow form the green buffer between the housing estates along Dinan Way and the Bystock Nature Reserve, East Budleigh and Woodbury Commons.

Behind, you can see the Exe Estuary, Starcross and the Haldon Hills. Closer, houses march up the hill towards us, peeping through the trees. In the surrounding woods and hedgerow lives a rich complex of wildlife.

Remains in the church suggest that people worshipped here before the Norman Conquest. Today, it is a place for farming, recreation and tourism. Walkers, joggers and cyclists use St John’s Road, as do horses and their riders. Motor traffic does too, of course, but at times this can be difficult since the road is very narrow.

People call this area Exmouth’s ‘green lung’. For those who live here, and for visitors to the town, it is a valuable amenity - part of the beautiful rural frame to a suburban environment as well as a green and wooded route out of town to the wild beauty of the woodland and Commons of East Devon.

East Devon District Council labels this area ‘St John’s Wood’ and has proposed building ‘up to 1000 homes, 15 hectares of land for employment and community uses and a neighbourhood centre’ here. If that is allowed to happen, the Wilderness will be engulfed in housing estates and a precious part of this East Devon environment will have been destroyed for ever. To see for yourself what could be lost, please ENTER ...